Creighton game thread

[skyhops]

Watched second half later yesterday evening and that is one of the best half’s I’ve seen in a few years. Obviously hitting threes help but their energy was great

[Anti-Homer]

Where did everyone go???? Or do you only comment when you have negative things to say?

Travis coached the coach some of you guys say is the better coach, not once but twice this year. 19-0 run

I hope you are happily embarassed

Where did we go?

To Mr. Monday Morning QB, who, based on Steele's record against teams he was supposed to beat in his tenure, has only been able to gloat about 27% of the time, I was at Hollywood Casino with a group of X-fans who, one by one, started leaving the TV area to go to the tables, and even loyal AH was the last to abandon watching another Steele masterpiece after the 12th bad shot with about 5 minutes to go. In the 1st half, Steele's only adjustment was ordering grape Capri Suns from Orange for the next Gold Jersey week.

As bad as Steele coached in the first, he was equally good in the 2nd. Neutral game for him, but's that's a win based coaching metric based on his tenure through three years. The beauty for him, is that it doesn't really require much effort, since adjusting is not his forte. As I said to our group, if X wins, it will be like an AAU game. One team just starts to out play/score others. Creighton Gauchos beat X by 17 in the first, and X's All OH Red outscored the Gauchos by 27 in the 2nd half.

Kudos to Scruggs, who played a much better 2nd half (only one ridiculous shot) and Free, who also played well, though 7-16 is not very efficient. Today also proved what I and many national pundits say. X has deep run talent this year......On the floor at least. BTW MM, why aren't you gloating about Hunter shooting threes, as you did several games ago???

One unfortunate Steele trend is that few of the recruits of have actually turned out to be big contributors. After a good game against Iowa St., a guy X will need next year in Edwards has hardly seen the floor, despite some horrific play by Free in most games. Same happened to Ramsey, and Tandy, after a stellar year, but can't see the floor, even in games when X can't hit the side of the barn. God forbid he comes in and hits three straight treys in a row, b/c it will only magnify the not too closely guarded secret that his evaluation skills of players made Marvin Lewis look like Bellicheck. Thrilled the Muskies won. Thrilled, thrilled, thrilled! Just hope talent prevails for the rest of the year, b/c the captain of the ship only changes course after hitting seven icebergs.

I would respond to your points but I am in too good a mood to start a pissing match against a fan that is buried in his negative points after a win. There are other boards for guys like you. You should frequent them. They are still fixated on the first half

Hu,

Can't put the Jeannie back in the bottle. Don't hurl a boulder then run away from the rock fight sensei.

[Anti-Homer]

Watched second half later yesterday evening and that is one of the best half’s I’ve seen in a few years. Obviously hitting threes help but their energy was great

Credit the players and Coach STEELE, my coach! Cutting down the number of bad shots from a dozen to about 5 in the 2nd half is a huge improvement! His quote at halftime was ,"Halftime scores are so overrated." I admittedly started to shiver uncontrollably for four hours and started bleeding from my eyes and ears after hearing this but we won! Awesome!!

[Xavier2005]

I have been attending and watching X basketball for over 44 years . Also have watched many many other basketball games and that 29-2 run in a second half and comeback win is the BEST performance I have ever seen. The X players and coaches should be very very proud of their performance and no quit attitude. Congrats for a great win.

[yellow20xd]

I have been attending and watching X basketball for over 44 years . Also have watched many many other basketball games and that 29-2 run in a second half and comeback win is the BEST performance I have ever seen. The X players and coaches should be very very proud of their performance and no quit attitude. Congrats for a great win.

I adopted X as my team 37 years ago and this was the lowest I've been after a half and the highest I've been after a half... All in the same game... Lets hope they can bottle the 2nd half and build on it... Dan

[joeabe]

All who wrote off the season after the first half please raise your hand!

[XU2011]

All who wrote off the season after the first half please raise your hand!

.....I have to admit that thought crossed my mind....made that second half that much more exciting. Was a fun game.

[muskieman]

Where did we go?

To Mr. Monday Morning QB, who, based on Steele's record against teams he was supposed to beat in his tenure, has only been able to gloat about 27% of the time, I was at Hollywood Casino with a group of X-fans who, one by one, started leaving the TV area to go to the tables, and even loyal AH was the last to abandon watching another Steele masterpiece after the 12th bad shot with about 5 minutes to go. In the 1st half, Steele's only adjustment was ordering grape Capri Suns from Orange for the next Gold Jersey week.

As bad as Steele coached in the first, he was equally good in the 2nd. Neutral game for him, but's that's a win based coaching metric based on his tenure through three years. The beauty for him, is that it doesn't really require much effort, since adjusting is not his forte. As I said to our group, if X wins, it will be like an AAU game. One team just starts to out play/score others. Creighton Gauchos beat X by 17 in the first, and X's All OH Red outscored the Gauchos by 27 in the 2nd half.

Kudos to Scruggs, who played a much better 2nd half (only one ridiculous shot) and Free, who also played well, though 7-16 is not very efficient. Today also proved what I and many national pundits say. X has deep run talent this year......On the floor at least. BTW MM, why aren't you gloating about Hunter shooting threes, as you did several games ago???

One unfortunate Steele trend is that few of the recruits of have actually turned out to be big contributors. After a good game against Iowa St., a guy X will need next year in Edwards has hardly seen the floor, despite some horrific play by Free in most games. Same happened to Ramsey, and Tandy, after a stellar year, but can't see the floor, even in games when X can't hit the side of the barn. God forbid he comes in and hits three straight treys in a row, b/c it will only magnify the not too closely guarded secret that his evaluation skills of players made Marvin Lewis look like Bellicheck. Thrilled the Muskies won. Thrilled, thrilled, thrilled! Just hope talent prevails for the rest of the year, b/c the captain of the ship only changes course after hitting seven icebergs.

I would respond to your points but I am in too good a mood to start a pissing match against a fan that is buried in his negative points after a win. There are other boards for guys like you. You should frequent them. They are still fixated on the first half

Hu,

Can't put the Jeannie back in the bottle. Don't hurl a boulder then run away from the rock fight sensei.

HAHA rock fight, so AH of you. Probably claimed Steele was your coach after the win but didn't forget to get a few digs in did you.

[longliveskip]

not sure on all the sentiments here regarding the game so i'll try to hit the ones i remember with my post:

to summarize - we aren't as BAD of a team as what she showed in the first half and we certainly are NOT as good as we showed in the 2nd half. to clarify, that 2nd half was literally a perfect storm of not just our offense hitting on all cylinders, but our defense making Creighton NOT good. is Creighton as bad of a team as they were the 2nd half? certainly not. their message boards might disagree. Xavier fans are in for a rude awakening if they think we are going to repeat an entire game, let alone a half of that kind, against ANY team again this season. it comes down to what i posted before - when you make shots you look better than you are. when you miss shots you look worse than you are.

contrary to some posters on here, we weren't taking BAD shots in the first half. we just weren't making them. i'm not saying they were all perfect but we weren't chucking up terrible shot after terrible shot like some people think on here. the energy was there but if you're not hitting shots your defense is going to be affected somewhat. that's the nature of basketball. we still only gave up 36 in the first half.

one thing that didn't happen at halftime was PANIC. relax, reset yourself mentally, come out and try to chip away. they just started MAKING the same exact shots we've seen them get the last 5 games. we did force Creighton into some turnovers but they got some of the same looks they had in the first half but just didn't make them.

Nate being Nate again helped. Scruggs having zero turnovers helped. Steele simply NOT subbing for like 13 minutes into the second half helped. everyone contributed to the comeback and Steele was right about one thing he said - confidence is like a drug. you get a little shot of it and it feeds into not just you, but your teammates as well.

to some of you - why in the world do you continue to bring up players like KyKy, Ramsey, or even Edwards at this point? KyKy is out for the year. Ramsey doesn't go here anymore nor would he play in front of Nunge, Free, or Hunter. his stats at whatever lower than mid-major school mean NOTHING to this team. Edwards isn't ready yet and if there's been any history of dudes we've had in the past who need a year to get themselves acclimated to our system, it's our BIGS.

this team is 15-5 with a pretty solid chance to be 17-5 by the end of the week.

to the boys and Steele: we are with you.

Let's go.

[kyzrex]

^ great post