Xavier Rides Big Second Half to Take Down Macae

The Muskies again were playing without Dee Davis and Matt Stainbrook, both of whom are being held out of games for largely precautionary reasons due to lower body injuries. With their only two returning starters on the bench, it's encouraging to see this team taking it to opponents in the opposite hemisphere.

I was going to provide you with a little narrative recap of the game, but that would have been lifted from a single source to a point that would likely have crossed the line between passing along information and plagiarism. If you want that information, hit up this link for the goxavier.com recap of the game. Shoutout to that poor writer for having to suffer through a long road trip to Brazil with the team; he/she is truly suffering for the craft.

Instead, I'll just give you some bullet points from the box score:

• Jalen Reynolds paced the team with 16 and 11, but he was an abysmal 2-9 from the free throw line. He is going to get to the line a lot this year; let's hope today's performance was the exception, not the norm.
• Three of Sean O'Mara's four boards were on the offensive end. Plenty of guys have the physical tools to get offensive rebounds, but those who excel at it do so because they run at the glass for almost every shot. O'Mara has 9 OReb in 2 games so far.
• The team went from 27 turnovers against Flamengo to 8 tonight; Coach Mack should be pleased with that. I know I am.
• Makinde London (2-4) and James Farr (1-1) combined to go 3-5 from behind the arc, which is awesome.
• Three of Xavier's four double-digit scorers were big men, with Jalen (16), London (10) and O'Mara (10) having only Remy Abell (12) for company from the back court. With Stainbrook and Dee coming back, the team figures to get even more forward-centric on offense.
• X outrebounded Macae 48-28.

That's probably enough for now, as we just have a box score at this point and my kid - the reason I'm up at this hour instead of trying to cram eight hours of rest into five hours of sleep - is crying again. We'll get the video highlights up if/when someone who was actually there posts them. Until then, keep repping the X.