Xavier power rankings, week fourteen

Since the beginning of conference play, Xavier has gone 1-1 in every week. The occasional weekend win followed by a weekday win has allowed for a modest winning streak - much as the same process has worked in reverse to make for losing stretches - but the story has always been the same by the end of the week: 1-1 on the week, .500 in conference.

Anyway, here are the players responsible for all that consistency (or mediocrity if your glass is half empty), ranked by how irreplaceable they are for Xavier.

13 and 12. Makine London and Edmond Sumner
These poor guys don't get to play at all thanks to their redshirts. They've just gotta sit there and watch the results pile up for their teammates.

11. Brandon Randolph
I'm not here to fuel transfer speculation, but this can't be what Randolph signed on for, right? He hasn't played in the last 3 games and has featured in just 5 of the last 11, never for more than 9 minutes. At this point it's not clear to me that he has a future in this program.

10. Larry Austin, Jr.
Austin plays a little bit more than Randolph, but they're generally blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos when Dee picks up fouls or has a leg fall off or something. Xavier's depth at point guard looked to run four deep at the start of the year, but it's barely over one right now.

8 (tie). James Farr and Sean O'Mara
Both guys played 11 minutes last week. Both had flashes of effectiveness and stretches of fairly poor play. Neither is going to make anyone forget about Tyrone Hill anytime soon. Their trajectories are moving in opposite directions, but they're basically interchangeable at this point.

7. JP Macura
After a long dry spell from behind the arc, JP broke out to the tune of 4-9 from deep this week. A gunner who can't gun is fairly easy to replace, but JP is a dangerous weapon when his shot is falling. The 1-3-1 zone has helped JP be more effective on the defensive end; I like the idea of three more years of this guy.

6. Jalen Reynolds
I know he's a monster, but he averaged a foul every 4:40 over the past week. At that clip, Coach Mack barely gets a half out of Reynolds before he's making O'Mara and Farr play rock/scissors/paper for a trip to the scorer's table. Until Jalen gets his fouling habit reined in, his prodigious talent is going to have trouble shining through.

5. Remy Abell
Remy shot 33-48 (.668) from inside the arc during non-conference play. He's shooting 17-43 (.395) from inside the arc in Big East games. We need non-conference Remy back, because his explosiveness and ability to score around the rim really helped the team avoiding giving up big runs without answering. He's still shooting the ball well from deep and defending, but his finishing is really a big hole to fill.

4. Dee Davis
Dee looked tired against Marquette, but he played well against St. John's... except for shooting too much. Stop shooting so much, Dee. You're doing everything else just fine.

3. Trevon Bluiett
Still the team's leading scorer. Trevon has 326 points on the year, putting him on pace for somewhere in the neighborhood of 420, depending on how many more games you think X will play. That would put him behind Semaj (456) and Byron Larkin (492). Considering that he has posted it in a power conference on a team with some other pretty good scorers, Trevon's output this year has been nothing to sneeze at.

2. Myles Davis
Myles has been doing a little bit of everything lately, which is good, because he shot 1-7 from behind the arc during the week. His ORtg of 117.6 in conference play trails only Matt Stainbrook's for Xavier. Combine that with his improving defense (now merely less than average!) and you've got a pretty darn good player.

1. Matt Stainbrook
Feed the beast and he will score. Preston North End used to employ that chant for husky forward John Parkin, but it's just as fitting for Matt Stainbrook. He shot 18 times to score 30 points and added 7 assists to just 2 turnovers last week. If Xavier wants to make a late run, keeping Stainbrook's plate full might be a good start.