Xavier Finds Its Way Into Goodman's Top 50

It's pay content and I'm not here to take the food out of Jeff Goodman's kids' mouths, so I'll just kind of give a brief interpretation. Goodman listed what he sees as the top 50 teams going into next season, and Xavier nestled in at #40. He correctly identified Semaj Christon, Justin Martin, and Isaiah Philmore as being key departures (no points for degree of difficulty there) and noted the key returnees who you might expect. On the incoming side, he anticipates that Trevon Bluiett and Remy Abell will be the most immediate contributors.

There's also probably some merit in pointing out that you can easily make the case that Xavier was not in the top 50 teams last year, to say nothing of being #40. In essence, Goodman believes Xavier got better (or their peers got comparatively worse) despite the loss of their top two scorers and an important piece of the front court.

While it's currently April and the basketball season is not scheduled to begin until November, I like seeing Xavier turn up on lists like these. Goodman also had Villanova at #9 and Georgetown at #48, meaning (I guess) that he sees Xavier as the second-best team in the Big East. Of course, one "Big East" on ESPN is worth 2-4 "Big East(s)" in the real world, so assume that the conference will once again be comfortably in the top 5 conferences in the nation.

What do you think? Is Xavier a top 40 team in the nation? Is the Big East really that thin at the top? Let us know in the comments.