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X Shows Resilience on the Road
By
Jay Skeldon,
1/27/2008
The No. 23 ranked Xavier Musketeers picked up a much needed road win on Sunday, defeating UMass 77-65. Xavier was led by Drew Lavender, who scored 19 points and pulled down a game-high nine rebounds. With the win, XU improves to 17-4 (5-1 A-10), and takes command of first place in the Atlantic 10. The Minutemen, meanwhile, fall to 13-6 overall and 2-3 in league action.
Xavier had four players in double figures scoring. In addition to Lavender, sophomore Derrick Brown recored 14 points, five rebounds, and a game-high four steals. Brown was especially instrumental in the first half on both ends of the court in allowing the Muskies to go into half with an 11 point lead, 34-23.
Junior C.J. Anderson chipped in a solid 13 points to go with seven rebounds, four of which came on the offensive glass. Anderson converted 6-of-9 field goals in 26 minutes of action.
XU forward Josh Duncan rounded out the double-digit scorers for X, finishing with 10 points in just 18 minutes of action. Perhaps the biggest play of the game belonged to Duncan. With UMass pulling within five points in the final five minutes of action, the senior came up large with a baseline, reverse lay-in over 6-8 Etienne Brower.
The Musketeers were uncharacteristically cool from the long range. Though the team hit 43.9% from the field, it converted just 18.2% of its attempts (4-of-22) from behind the arc. The X-Men made up for the off-shooting afternoon with two key ingredients to winning on the road: tough defense and rebounding.
The Muskies held UMass to just 37.0% shooting from the field and 28.6% on 3-pointers. In addition, Xavier's tightly packed defense held Minutemen leading scorers, Ricky Harris and Gary Forbes, a combined 17 points below their season averages. The net effect was a lowly 65 point output by Massachusetts. UMass entered the game averaging 84.9 points per game.
Xavier won the battle of the boards, 41-30. Lavender, the shortest player on the floor, led all players with a game-high nine rebounds. Sophomore center Jason Love and Anderson added seven rebounds apiece.
After back-to-back challenges, Xavier now returns to the Queen City for a much needed breather. X returns to action on Saturday evening to face La Salle at Cintas Center. Tipoff is slated for 7:00 p.m.
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