Musketeer Madness

I know they've lost a coupe of games now, but don't forget that people were picking Xavier seventh in the Conference to start the year. They're a lot better than people originally thought.

I wrote more about that here: https://thebrokenanchor.com/three-big-t ... st-season/

Also, I know I've been not as active on here for the past month or so, but this time I'm here to stay, I promise.

If you had told me they'd be 8-2 in November I would have been pretty happy.That last game just left a bad taste in my mouth.Hopefully they bounce back tonight.A 3 game losing streak would be concerning.

They have played poorly the last two games against decent teams. Early season records are deceiving considering the competition

I'd agree that X is better than many gave them credit for. They are very capable of being great. The pieces are there. They need better direction as they look lost at times.

Rotation has been a problem. Obviously poor shooting has been an issue. With Johnson, Tandy, and Kunkel, shooting should not be a problem but they all seem to go cold at the same time.

bluegrass wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 06, 2021 12:54 pm

If you had told me they'd be 8-2 in November I would have been pretty happy.That last game just left a bad taste in my mouth.Hopefully they bounce back tonight.A 3 game losing streak would be concerning.

I'd agree....If their schedule to date didn't resemble what the fans at the Sandal across town are used to seeing.

skyhops wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 06, 2021 1:58 pm

They have played poorly the last two games against decent teams. Early season records are deceiving considering the competition

playing poorly and shooting poorly are two different things. SHU was a great example. got great looks against SHU. they just didn't fall. actually the one thing i saw online was that our shot selection was BETTER than SHU's. they just made their tougher shots. that happens sometimes.

didn't play great against Creighton but even so, had a wide open 3 to tie it at the buzzer and it just didn't go.

plenty to improve on, which is ok at this point in the season.

to be able to win an ugly game against SJU not even making a 3??? that actually speaks volumes about this team. there is ZERO chance that either last year's team or year before wins a game like that.

The play of Odom and Jones was very encouraging last night, but the amount of senseless turnovers by some of our veteran players was concerning. St. Johns is not a good team and for 30 minutes we played about as bad as a team can play at home. Steele finally realized it was time to play a zone, which should have been played earlier on vs a poor shooting team that mainly scores on dribble drives. If we play the way we have the last couple games we will finish at the bottom of the conference.

skyhops wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 07, 2021 9:47 am

The play of Odom and Jones was very encouraging last night, but the amount of senseless turnovers by some of our veteran players was concerning. St. Johns is not a good team and for 30 minutes we played about as bad as a team can play at home. Steele finally realized it was time to play a zone, which should have been played earlier on vs a poor shooting team that mainly scores on dribble drives. If we play the way we have the last couple games we will finish at the bottom of the conference.

Pretty clear that Steele went with the guys he thought he could win with down the end and that included 2 freshmen. Too many sloppy,bone headed turnovers.How many times this year have we been called for over and back taking the ball out after a made basket? I mean thats grade school basketball 101.Freemantle just looked like he wasn't locked in last night.

It's really hard to see if they are better or worse than people thought. The Xavier classic were not world beaters and other than Oakland, X barely survived. The area they have improved is 3 point shooting but is still very inconsistent. 5 good games and 5 bad shooting games thus far. I would put Marquette and Xavier on the same line at this point. When both teams are hot, X shoots better but Marquette is better on the interior. Marquette has a couple of quality wins (Wisconsin and Creighton) while X best NET ranking win is Oklahoma 49 (Toledo 66 and Marquette 74). Hopefully, X will start to shoot better again because teams are taking the 3 away from X to a point. Guarding shooters beyond the arc and forcing the bigs to beat you.

Stanley torn ACL, feel bad for him we will miss him.