The story behind Brandon Randolph's disappearing minutes

First, a tweet I first saw because Larry Austin himself retweeted it:

Chris Mack says @LarryAustinJr has earned the right to be No. 2 PG on XU, comes to practice every day ready to work. #LetsGoX

— Jeremy Rauch (@FOX19Jeremy) January 16, 2015

And this, from Shannon Russell:

For Brandon Randolph to get back on the floor, coach Chris Mack said he'd have to out-perform @LarryAustinJr. #Xavier

— Shannon Russell (@slrussell) January 16, 2015

I'm assuming Coach Mack means outperform Austin in practice, because Austin has scored 7 points in 11 games, didn't look great on defense against Villanova (but who did?), and sports a TO% north of 50%. Those are not impressive numbers.

Randolph generated a good bit of conversation on here during the offseason as a potential breakout player. He started the season looking sharp, but he has really fallen off the last few weeks. It has been clear just by looking at his minutes that Randolph is out of favor, but this is the first time much has been discussed of it publicly. Is this the wakeup call Brandon needs? Or his time with Xavier going to come to a close with this season?