Xavier Post Game Thread

[Edward Sargent]

Our perimeter switches tonight were awful. The X plan was if Reed is on you shoot

 

[Vowelguy]

Both teams combined: 38-42 on FTs

 

[BFieldHusky]

69-64 after Xavier went nuclear from 3 and they bounced right back, recovering from that and then exploding again after Gonzaga had tied it 55-55 was reminiscent of last year's team responding to runs.

Great point. At 69-64, I was worried the game was slipping away with Xavier just raining 3s.

 

[uh-no]

what are you going to do when the other guys shoot 63% from three? there is always room for improvement on closeouts, but we ain't THAT bad.

 

[EROCK CONN]

Reed was an absolute beast tonight. Almost seems automatic that he’ll score if gets the ball in the low post. 13 boards is 1 less than X’s starting 5 combined and 1 less than the rest of our starters combined. If the ball is within his reach — it’s his. He’s a monster. Ball and Karaban were awesome as well. Huge win. That was Xavier’s A+ game — they shot 54% from 3…. unreal. To put that into context, if we shot 40% from three and so did they, the final score is 100-80 good guys.

Something needs to be done about NCAA officiating. These guys are horrifically awful , like 100x worse than weather forecasters. They are killing the game.

 

[Gutter King]

I am in "Let's find a way to win these" mode, right now. Do not care about style points. The team got better tonight and love McNeeley driving. Should have been him ending this game at the FT line with that no-call block.

Proud of Tarris' FT at the end of reg. He showed out tonight in multiple ways.

 

[Waquoit]

Gampel wishes it had a crowd like the XL tonight. They willed this team to victory. Too bad it's relegated to the back markers for the rest of the string.

 

[Jhuskie89]

Big reeeeeeeeedddd! McNeeley please continue to drive to that hoop!

 

[HooperScooper]

A win in their first Big East game is better than a loss like they've had in 5 of the last 6 years before this.

I did have a question. Is their 3 point defense really as bad as the stats look? Xavier hit a lot of tough threes. When is that regression happening that Isaac Trotter of CBS Sports promised?

There's a real chance that UConn has some positive regression coming its way defensively. Even in Sunday's much-needed, 76-65 road win over Texas, UConn still did not have the Basketball Gods on its side. Texas attempted four guarded catch-and-shoot 3-pointers. It made every single one of 'em.

That was not an anomaly.

Teams are shooting 37% on contested catch-and-shoot treys against UConn this season. That's an absurdly high number. Opponents are also shooting a ridiculous 35% on off-the-dribble 3-pointers against UConn. Again, a ridiculously high number compared to most of UConn's peers.

Overall, top-100 teams are shooting 48% from 3-point range against UConn this year. Maui's generous rims could be fudging those numbers a tad, but that does not feel sustainable at all.

If UConn's defense starts stringing together better performances, there's a good chance the 3-point luck has swung back in its direction.

Trotter's 10 Trends: Iowa State's soaring offense, Kentucky's changed Lamont Butler among top takeaways

UConn's unlucky defense is also among 10 trends that Isaac Trotter is tracking.

www.cbssports.com

 

[Bomber36]

Gampel wishes it had a crowd like the XL tonight. They willed this team to victory. Too bad it's relegated to the back markers for the rest of the string.

Crowd was huge!

 

[Edward Sargent]

Pat Driscoll. Guy is a joke. I could tell from the upper deck that ball was off the Xavier player.

The call on ball off Reed was correct. What they didn't call was the defender hitting Reeds arm

 

[AtlantaHusky]

Hats off to Xavier, they shot the lights out. We will get these games in the BE it's an opportunity for our opponents to take down the King. Especially after the drubbing of X last year. Amazing composure by our team. Solo and Alex stepped up late. Reed is steady and making the idiot at sleepers media eat crow every game. McNeeley is so dynamic, will be super special come March. Took lots of gut punches and came back. Some good analysis on this thread! Cheers.

 

[uchusky32]

That's a BE grind game. And we won! I'll take it. Could have won comfortable if LM stayed on the floor in 1st half. AK showed up when needed. Big in 2nd half. But needs to start inside out from the 3. Like take your first couple from the corner or on the line. He got better around the rim late. He could have went for 30 if he made some rim shots in 1st.

Reed played big. But we got beat to the rim and gave up 3s. Can't give up both.

 

[housekeys]

Listen, UConn did not shoot particularly well, just like in Maui, BUT, the opponent was 8/10 from 3's in the second half. Shot out of their minds, stressed UConn, took UConn to overtime and LOST! So my question is, can the best team in the country, arbitrarily Auburn, play any better than Memphis or Xavier [ 50% 2FG, 55% 3FG, 87% FT ]? I can't see it. And if they do, UConn has shown it can win these games.

This is why, I believe we are final four good. Amazing resiliency of the UConn wagon, and it seems like the wagon has only 3 wheels at this point (injuries and AM not contributing like we know he can).

 

[Trudy Gay]

Gampel wishes it had a crowd like the XL tonight. They willed this team to victory. Too bad it's relegated to the back markers for the rest of the string.

I don’t know about that, the Baylor game was about as loud as I’ve ever heard Gampel or XL.

 

[Bomber36]

Thankfully we went 20-21 from the charity stripe. Needed every one of those.

The charity stripe won us the 2014 championship. Those guys didn’t miss. It hurts when you do. Remember (and I love him) Donyell.

 

[uconngb]

I was actually fine with them for most of the game. But the last like 5 minutes of reg through OT was one of the worst stretches of refereeing I’ve seen in a long time.

Agree w this. Homerism is always going to skew each sides view of the refs. But the last 5 min of the and the OT was a film on bad refereeing. Just awful refereeing. Objectively

 

[HooperScooper]

I don’t really ever complain about refs. But, man….

They definitely had a rough night. Even Seth Davis agreed. I think they were bad both ways.

 

[gsmooth]

The refs tonight were worse than Maui.

Holy hell.

One of them was in Maui for the UConn-Memphis game.

 

[RuffRuff]

How did Xavier lose to TCU...

Great to get the win. Little worried about only getting 6 points from the bench but feel like that will fix itself once we get Samson back

My biggest concern was that the bench provided so little tonight in an OT game.

Offense this year in key spots should be Liam with the ball creating with a take to the rim, or a dump in to Tarris. It would have worked in the last regulation posession but Liam took an outside route to the lane that went sideways. Tarris was isod down low with a guy he had a ton of size on and ate up all night.

Great character building win against a team that came in really hungry and hot from the field, and with a great coach. The immediate response after going down 5 in the last five minutes show resilience.

 

[3rdbass]

Hats off to Xavier, they shot the lights out. We will get these games in the BE it's an opportunity for our opponents to take down the King. Especially after the drubbing of X last year. Amazing composure by our team. Solo and Alex stepped up late. Reed is steady and making the idiot at sleepers media eat crow every game. McNeeley is so dynamic, will be super special come March. Took lots of gut punches and came back. Some good analysis on this thread! Cheers.

Don't forget Diarra playing great D and running the offense almost flawlessly.

 

[gsmooth]

I was actually fine with them for most of the game. But the last like 5 minutes of reg through OT was one of the worst stretches of refereeing I’ve seen in a long time.

That's exactly what I said in the chat.

 

[TheShot1990]

It's time for Sam Altman to create AI refs and put these geezers out to pasture.

 

[Palatine]

Great win. X shot the lights out. But.. they did shred our defense for long stretches in the second half. The switch to get Diarra low worked wonders for them.

Our offense is pretty darn reliable. Even with the six minute drought in the first half (after McNeeley went out) we were pushing 80 points in regulation. That's impressive.

 

[Kenny11]

Nothing negative to take from that. A 30% bench guy going nuclear with circus threes is pure luck. Loved how the team responded.

Hurley has said in the past that teams give us their best shot but after winning 2 straight national championships, teams are reallllllly giving us their best. I expect the 3 point percentage against us to be higher just based off that. But hopefully the extreme of what happened tonight doesn’t happen again.