Just How Fortunate Are We?

[bluegrass]

I've been going to X games since the mid 70's. To go from a few hundred at Schmidt Fieldhouse to sold out crowds at the Cintas Center, sub .500 records against poor opponents to top 25 rankings is pretty incredible. I never taken this success for granted. Every time a coach leaves I worry-what if the next guy isn't a good coach and the program takes a dramatic step back?

We have been very lucky to have 5 great coaches in a row but at some point that could end. Is the program strong enough to bounce back from a down period? I'm not talking missing the tournament for 2 years in a row. I mean missing for 5 years in a row(like UD). I think it is because of the administration and alumni. Let's hope we don't have to find out any time soon.

[kyzrex]

Funny how this seemd to come up at this time. I was just thinking Sunday morning on the way to church, how blessed we older fans are. I won't downtalk Schmidt and teams back then, because we didn't have anything else. The players we had then were almost all local, the expectations were low. We still had fun, and we all have some great memories....how about going out west and beating USC and another big school that I can't remember to win a holiday tourney? Beating UC in 1980? There were other moments. too.

However, what the teams have done over the last 20 years, how the program has grown, how bright the future appears to be....these are things that I doubt any of us could have imagined in our wildest dreams.

We are fortunate to have experienced all of it. I truely truely believe that.

[wkrq59]

MuskieNick has it right. I go back a little earlier having watched Xavier in the early 50s and then as a student and ever after more than 50 years. Yes, we are very fortunate. It has already been noted that Xavier does it the right way. These players are students first and by the time they are seniors, can conduct an interview, appear on television and show poise well beyond their years. Many are already in Masters Degree programs by the time they begin their senior year.
I remember when Josh Duncan was a freshman. There were so damn many rumors about the kid, most of them not worth listening to and now look at him. Many seniors who removed from the starting lineup for a sophomore would have sulked and moaned and even gone public with their displeasure. What's Josh do? Just becomes not only a dependable player in the clutch but turns into a leader. The same with Stanley--think now, how many times on this board his manhood was challenged and his value as a human being questioned. Drew has been everything a point guard should be and he has taken to the Xavier way, student first, athlete second. All three men are extremely well spoken. Just listen to the TV interview Stanley did Sunday and his reaction to Martelli's comments---"That's really flattering."
There is something to be said, too about the roles of CJ, new to the school, Adrion, whose lip could be stuck out so far a bird could land on it, but he keeps playing his role and making a contribution. BJ and Derrick, two players with immense talent who play much bigger than their years. The same for Jackson and Jason. Has anyone noticed how Jason, CJ and Derrick, who used to be brick layers at the free throw line, are now shooting respectably from the stripe?
The comments about Tay were so very true. He once sent an assistant with four baloney sandwiches and some apples and oranges and a bag of chips on a recruiting trip to Alabama in a staff car that had an empty gas tank and him without a credit card. I think he got as far as the aforementioned Rabbit Hash, Ky.
The recruiting budget was in the bad neighborhood of $10,000 and about the time Tay came along, it was a whopping $90,000. He gave scholarships to the sons of his former players. The fathers were only so-so at UC, and the sons were, well, let's just say one of them was cut from his grade school basketball team and later went out for his high school team because he had grown to 6-8 and could grab a rebound now and then but only when it hit him in the head first.
From Staak to Gillen to Prosser-RIP- to Matta to Sean, Xavier has flourished in basketball. But credit must be given to Fr. Hoff, and even Diulio before him and Fr. Mike Graham afterward. To the ADs who served, McCafferty, Staak, Fogelson and now Bobinski. They have managed to keep the program more than solvent. Xavier has the Cintas Center which is the jewel of the A10 as far as arenas are concerned. I don't know if you can easily access either Schmidt Fieldhouse or the Gardens, but just walk in them and then go to Cintas. Nuff said.
Xavier now plays the Kansas States, Virginias, Auburns, next year Wake Forest, the Arizona States, Indianas and Tennessees and enters each of those games with the realistic idea that they can win, unlike the late 60s and early 70s when Xavier was every host team's first game in its holiday tournament, when a road trip to Kansas for a whipping in Phog was a great guarantee. Xavier went from being the buy game everybody wanted, to doing the buying and playing not 2-for-1s but getting 1-for-i, home and away games or in the Wooden Classic or the Chicago Tournament or some other major competition.
Xavier no longer has to listen to the crap that Pete did when he tried to schedule a big name team from a Big 6 conference--"Sure we'll play you coach, three for one, Our place next year, neutral site the next year and then two years after that, at Cincinnati in Riverfront Coliseum, and there was an unspoken "maybe," after that last game arrangement.
This is indeed the Golden Age of Xavier basketball. Whenever you're tempted to find fault excessively, to see a need for perfection that most likely won't happen or just need someone to vent at after a tough loss, say like Temple, just ask Nick, or Owl or any of us who saw the dark ages. We're damn glad to have seen the light.

[GBXU]

The same with Stanley--think now, how many times on this board his manhood was challenged and his value as a human being questioned.

If people were really doing that there's a real problem with this board.

How you play basketball has little to do with your 'value as a human'... unless you are a bearcat player who kidnaps roomates and burns them with cigarettes.

[wkrq59]

GB,
I was joking in re. Stanley's worth as a human being. Unfortunately, his manhood as well as ability to play the game has been questioned in the near four years I've been posting on this board. I agree when that happens "something is wrong."
Sadly, over the years, some on this board forget Drew, Stanley and especially Josh are still college players. They are just as human as are all of us. They're not pros.
But all three have progressed remarkably during their time at Xavier, and I for one, believe their best is yet to come. Oh, and one thing can be said for all three, regardless of their basketball skills. They exemplify the class we have come to expect from Xavier athletes.
In a perfect world, the manhood of that trio would never be questioned. But who says we live in a perfect world? Be that as it may, Xavier basketball for those of us who survived the dark ages of that sport, --and everyone else for that matter--is a pleasure this year.

[gundun]

I just retired from a major football university (who recently had our b-ball coach retire) and I can tell you that this school will gladly change our sports achievements for that of X. Especially when graduation records over the past twenty years are factored in.
Yes, the luckiest day in my life was when I picked X over the place up north that offered me an academic scholarship. And, I owe that to an unknown student, who seeing my parents and me wondering around campus in the Fall of 1960, came up and asked if he could help.
I am so proud to be a Muskie.