Can win without good players???

[X-Expert]

Injuries have definitely affected this team. However, look at the team when they were completely healthy. X was -0-5 vs top 25. In Nov, reached as high as 7th and before Ed's injury they were about to get out of top 25 after losing to UC. This team has one quality win (ironically without Ed). I think there is enough blame to go around but to start this post and only point to the players being at fault is ridiculous. Coaching staff has failed as well. When you are playing against Creighton at home and their best player goes out, X absolutely should have won. Also, keep in mind that at the end of the day, players on the court were recruited by the coaching staff. So every season begins and ends with the coaching staff.

[xu koop scoop]

Statement of entering last years NCAA without injuries not quite true. James Farr was hurt & only played a few minutes & not at all in 2nd half
We beat Wisconsin with a healthy Farr.

[X-Expert]

Statement of entering last years NCAA without injuries not quite true. James Farr was hurt & only played a few minutes & not at all in 2nd half
We beat Wisconsin with a healthy Farr.

Perhaps but frankly, ahead by nine with 5 minutes and X should have won anyway. Offense stalled and poor execution from the bench to the court. Last year is over and X was a two and out. Hopefully they make the tourney this year and see what happens. X does have a lot of talent so anything can happen.

[Xavier2005]

lot of if and's and but's....in both seasons. Which season is best??? Well, this season is not over....if they reach the Sweet 16 and or Elite 8, then this overall season would be best. Better than last year!!! Why??? Examples: If a team in the NFL with a much poorer regular season record, but makes the play off and reaches, not wins, the Super Bowl....it was a great season overall. The poor regular season does not matter. Same goes for Xavier and college basketball. Xavier had one of the worse regular season's ever , that team Beat No.1 St Joseph in the A10...won the A10 tournament to get into the Dance, then was an Elite 8 Team and just missed beating Duke to be a FF team. The post season was the best ever for X and the regular season was terrible. I will take that and more/FF every year LOL LOL. Last year X's regular season was great and got them a 2 seed...then X falls on their face in the post season....that really sucked. Never want a great regular season followed by a terrible post season finish. I think that answers the question. None of Chris Mack's 8 years compares to the 2 Xavier teams which made the Elite 8. And if this year's team loses to DePaul in the BE Tournament and does not make the Dance, after being in the top 15 in the polls....then this year would be one of the worse seasons for Mack and modern X basketball....IMHO.

[kyzrex]

I actually don't think that this team, as it sits right now, is really very talented. IMO Xavier has had many other teams that were actually more talented. Many of its players are one dimensional and are lacking in some areas. They aren't particularly deep, and /or experienced as only Bluiett and JP are players with a lot of experience playing in the Xavier system. Sean and Gates didn't come into the season with a lot of playing time history. The other 4 players are either transfers or freshman. It's not like X has a team of 3-4 year starters playing.

However, having said that.......this team usually plays hard and gives effort. Many of the players are streaky shooters, but if they can get on a good streak they can really put up some points. Against certain teams their defense can be successful enough to get wins. They have played a very tough schedule and have only been beaten badly a few times. So, depending on how the matchups go, they could surprise some people and make it to the 2nd weekend. But first thing first, let's see if they can beat DePaul in Wednesday and then see what happens after that.

[MOSQUETERO]

Statement of entering last years NCAA without injuries not quite true. James Farr was hurt & only played a few minutes & not at all in 2nd half
We beat Wisconsin with a healthy Farr.

Perhaps but frankly, ahead by nine with 5 minutes and X should have won anyway. Offense stalled and poor execution from the bench to the court. Last year is over and X was a two and out. Hopefully they make the tourney this year and see what happens. X does have a lot of talent so anything can happen.

The drive back from St. Louis was horrible. It seemed like it took days. Up nine with 5 minutes left we should have won this going away. This loss is harder for me to fathom than the loss to Duke in ATL in 2004.

[Xavier2005]

as a season ticket holder for about 35 years....most of those season's schedule were loaded with very very weak teams in the non conference part of the season. I even hate going to most non conference games because the teams are usually weak compared to X. X does play a few strong teams in the non conference schedules , but very few. This season's schedule has no great wins...maybe a good win here or there...but no great wins. The only thing that will make this season great is a deep run in the Dance.

[thecoach]

+1, i will reserve judgement on the strength of schedule and all that is that debate until i see how teams do in the tournament.

[X-Expert]

Statement of entering last years NCAA without injuries not quite true. James Farr was hurt & only played a few minutes & not at all in 2nd half
We beat Wisconsin with a healthy Farr.

Perhaps but frankly, ahead by nine with 5 minutes and X should have won anyway. Offense stalled and poor execution from the bench to the court. Last year is over and X was a two and out. Hopefully they make the tourney this year and see what happens. X does have a lot of talent so anything can happen.

The drive back from St. Louis was horrible. It seemed like it took days. Up nine with 5 minutes left we should have won this going away. This loss is harder for me to fathom than the loss to Duke in ATL in 2004.

I can only imagine. Ironically, I went to the first game in St Louis but couldn't stay due to another conflict. I remember after the loss to Wisconsin how glad I was for not staying