Season thoughts from the flight back from Phoenix

[NYC938]

The dream died in the desert yesterday and the most successful group of seniors to step on the court for the Musketeers walked off the court on together on Saturday, the same way they walked onto it in November. As much as it hurt, nothing could have been more apropos of the “All for One” philosophy that this team, and especially Josh Duncan, Drew Lavender, and Stanley Burrell, embraced all year.

Perhaps no one more the Burrell personified the concept of this team and that’s why for me, and clearly for him, watching him leave the court was the hardest. “I saw Dante over there, checking in for me,” Burrell said. "It hurt. I love Xavier man. They gave me an opportunity when no one else would. I always tried to do the best I could every time I stepped on the court.”

In his four year career, Burrell went from a leading scorer as a freshman and judging success by his points per game, to the A-10 Defensive player of the year in this year’s campaign, finishing sixth on the team in scoring. When the buzzer sounded for the game’s final substitutions, the finality of the moment hit home for Burrell and he crouched at mid-court, overcome by emotion, wanting to preserve whatever waning seconds he could until his teammates pulled him up and the tears rolled down. Burrell was this team’s unquestioned pulse and leader. And the emotion he played with was his towering strength but in the biggest games, keeping it in check was his greatest detriment.

As for the game itself, I think Sam Elliott said it best in the Big Lebowski. “Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes, well, the bar, it eats you.” For almost an entire season, the former applied to Xavier but yesterday it was most decidedly the latter. I know everyone watched, so I’ll avoid the specifics. In 2004 against Duke, Xavier wore the pants. Yesterday, they wet them. Pretty simple. UCLA was the better team and Miller admitted as much after the game when he said, “I think we took it as far as we could. To beat UCLA a lot of things would have had to fall in line for us. And I’m at ease with that.” That certainly doesn’t make it any less disappointing or disheartening but to a large degree, his remarks ring true.

This season was the most Xavier basketball I watched since my senior year in 2003 (thanks channelsurfing.net) and was the most fun I’ve had following basketball in years. Xavier was a top ten program for almost a third of the year, won thirty games against the toughest schedule in school history, beat the two best teams in the Big Ten (not to mention two in the Big East and SEC, and one in the Big 12 and ACC), crushed Dayton three times on the court and their hope off it, while making it back to the Elite 8. If you had told me in that in November, I would have signed up for it every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Despite the overwhelming success of the season, today five people must have asked me if I regretted the cross country trek to Phoenix given the way things ended. Nothing could be further from the truth because even with the unfitting final act, everything I loved about this team was there to behold on Thursday night, and I was there. Xavier completely dominated in every aspect of the game during the opening ten minutes; survived West Virginia’s run leading into half time and continued their patented resiliency in the second half. They hit big shots (actually the biggest shot in school history), played lock down defense in overtime during every instance they had to have a stop or corral a rebound, and never quit believing, even though I did on at least three occasions. It was easily the greatest game I’ve ever been too and was a microcosm of season itself. When Raymond’s second three pointer ripped through the twine, I hugged everyone in a 5 seat radius, and for the first time in my life nearly cried with happiness. Saturday afternoon hurt but it didn’t take away the elation and the unbridled joy of Thursday. Nothing ever will.

Tomorrow, it’s back to work. Seven months away from another season. Tom Petty said “The work never ends. College does.” And for Duncan, Lavender, and Burrell, it just did. Sad as it is to say, and as great as this season was, the dream died in the desert yesterday. In the land of dry, desolate, unforgiving terrain, Xavier University once again had college basketball’s greatest prize in sight. The summit was in view. But it’s never looked so far away.

[soniqstylz]

As for the game itself, I think Sam Elliott said it best in the Big Lebowski. “Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes, well, the bar, it eats you.” For almost an entire season, the former applied to Xavier but yesterday it was most decidedly the latter. I know everyone watched, so I’ll avoid the specifics. In 2004 against Duke, Xavier wore the pants. Yesterday, they wet them. Pretty simple. UCLA was the better team and Miller admitted as much after the game when he said, “I think we took it as far as we could. To beat UCLA a lot of things would have had to fall in line for us. And I’m at ease with that.” That certainly doesn’t make it any less disappointing or disheartening but to a large degree, his remarks ring true.

That's it right there.

My junior year in high school, our team set a school record for victories, then ran into a buzzsaw in St. Mary's in the second round of the playoffs. As my coach put it, "they were *this* much better than us, but they were *this* much better than us in every phase of the game on every play". And it led to us getting blown out.

That's just the way it seemed yesterday. Xavier belonged in that game, UCLA wasn't overwhelmingly better, but they were *this* much better in every phase of the game.