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Second Half Surge Leads to Four Straight
1/18/2012
 | | Senior Kenny Frease delivers a behind the back pass for a nifty assist and a Jeff Robinson dunk. [enlarge] Photo by Bob Stevens |  | | Mark Lyons goes over the St. Joe defense for a lay-up and two of his team high 17 points.[enlarge] Photo by Bob Stevens |  | | Xavier senior Tu Holloway finds room in the lane for a basket. [enlarge] Photo by Bob Stevens |  | | Jeff Robinson does a reverse dunk for two of his 12 points.[enlarge] Photo by Bob Stevens |  | | Dez Wells walks off the court in obvious pain after getting hit in the jaw. [enlarge] Photo by Bob Stevens |  | | Head Coach Chris Mack calls a play in the first half of the game against St. Joe.[enlarge] Photo by Bob Stevens |
For one half, St. Joe's looked like they were the Musketeers worst nightmare. Athletic, strong, can shoot from outside. Sound familiar? Think Gonzaga. For one half, it looked like the Muskies' 42 game win streak against the A10 in Cintas was going to end. The young, spunky Hawks were firing on all cylinders, carrying a 39-37 lead into halftime, and pushing the lead to 6 in the early stages of the second.
And then, Xavier grew up a little bit. After failing to finish games for much of the year (with exception to the Cincinnati game), and for the last two home games, the Musketeers put the petal to the metal and didn't let up. Behind a smothering defensive effort in the second half, and the maturation of a new, team-oriented Tu Holloway, Xavier cruised to a 68-55 victory. Now, the Musketeers (13-5, 4-1) can begin their focus on a 1:00 tip Saturday in Dayton. St. Joe's (12-7, 2-3), meanwhile, finds themselves in the familiar position of having lost another tough road game.
“It begins and ends with one number: 19 turnovers,” St. Joe's Coach Phil Martelli said. “(We’re) not winning on the road against a championship-level team with 19 turnovers, 11 of them in the second half. That’s the lesson learned.
"This is probably gonna cost me down the line. But they're the best team in the league. I can tell it you honestly they were not he best team in the league at La Salle or at Fordham. But now these three games, ok, you see it. It's like a giant stone, boulder rolling at you, and you're like 'holy mackerel.'"
While most of the year has been about the Muskies' usual outstanding guard play (and Mark Lyons did get 17), tonight it was about the low post players and their athleticism. Dez Wells finished with 12 and came back after two hard blows to the face. Jeff Robinson had a highlight dunk with an assist from Kenny Frease, finishing with 12 points, while making all 6 of his shots. And the big guy Frease had 13 with 7 rebounds. Together, they pounded the ball down low against St. Joe's, outscoring them 44 to 30 in the paint. That will certainly make up for being outrebounded 38-28.
For the Musketeers, it was team effort on offense and defense. They shot 49.1% for the game, and an electric 56.5% in the second. Combine that with Tu Holloway, who seems to have transformed himself into a pass first, team-oriented guard, and his 12 assists, and you have a recipe for a solid game.
"He was different against Gonzaga than he was against La Salle or Fordham," Martelli said of Holloway. "He's still a dominant player. You have 12 assists in a game? That's a dominant player. ... He makes a simple extra pass, and changes a 4 on 4 fast break into a 2 on 1 fast break. Just by a simple pass. I think his game has gotten much simpler this year."
That first half was the kind of game the Hawks want to play - up tempo, fast-paced. The second half was dictated by Xavier's good shot selection and strong defense. They smothered the Hawks, holding them to 25% shooting with just 6 field goals in the second half. Xavier would outscore them 31-16 in the second. And dictating tempo is such a huge part of the Muskies' game.
“[Thirty-nine points is] a lot more points than we’ve given up in the past few games and I think they were hitting a lot of tough shots. But there [were] a lot of things…that we were not 100 percent clicking on,” Kenny Frease said. “In the second half I think we were able to correct a lot of that. I think that was probably the best defensive half we’ve had all year.”
It helps too when the Hawks' (and the A10's) leading scorer, Tay Jones, is down with a bum ankle. Nonetheless, the Hawks were able to still attack Xavier with their athleticism and size. For awhile, it bothered the Musketeers. For half. But everything was different in the second half. The team finished. They played hard for 40 minutes. And that's what Coach Mack has been preaching for 18 games.
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