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Xavier at Colorado: live chat, listings, keys to the game

By Joel D
Please be careful about those fouls, Tre!
Please be careful about those fouls, Tre!
Sean Pokorny-USA TODAY Sports
Xavier Musketeers (7-1)
Per Game Table
Rk Player MP FG% 3P% FT% TRB AST PTS
1 Trevon Bluiett 33.8 .421 .333 .816 6.3 2.5 18.3
2 J.P. Macura 34.8 .382 .319 .939 4.4 3.4 15.5
3 Edmond Sumner 34.6 .483 .222 .694 4.6 4.3 15.3
4 Sean O'Mara 16.8 .619 .700 3.3 0.5 7.4
5 Rashid Gaston 16.9 .459 .600 6.1 0.6 6.1
6 Malcolm Bernard 29.4 .385 .364 .250 4.5 1.3 5.0
7 Quentin Goodin 17.0 .591 .375 .462 1.4 1.8 4.4
8 Kaiser Gates 14.7 .364 .300 .000 3.3 0.0 3.7
9 Tyrique Jones 12.0 .435 .333 4.5 0.4 2.8
10 Leighton Schrand 1.0 1.000 0.0 0.0 1.0
11 Tim Stainbrook 3.3 .500 .500 0.3 0.3 1.0
12 Cullen Barr 1.0 .000 .000 0.0 0.0 0.0
13 Alex Bergen 0.8 0.0 0.0 0.0
14 Conor Peterson 1.0 0.7 0.0 0.0
Provided by CBB at Sports Reference: View Original Table
Generated 12/7/2016.
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Colorado Buffaloes (6-2)
Per Game Table
Rk Player MP FG% 3P% FT% TRB AST PTS
1 Xavier Johnson 27.1 .456 .368 .679 6.3 1.0 14.4
2 Derrick White 30.1 .520 .316 .737 4.0 3.5 14.0
3 George King 25.8 .478 .346 .667 6.8 0.5 10.6
4 Josh Fortune 25.6 .431 .345 .879 4.0 1.6 10.4
5 Wesley Gordon 26.0 .368 .000 .652 9.5 1.6 7.1
6 Dominique Collier 13.0 .500 .571 0.0 0.5 6.0
7 Tory Miller 13.1 .417 1.000 .400 3.9 0.3 5.3
8 Deleon Brown 12.3 .500 .462 .700 0.9 0.6 4.1
9 Thomas Akyazili 14.5 .387 .000 .778 1.6 2.4 3.9
10 Bryce Peters 14.5 .304 .300 .600 1.7 0.7 3.8
11 Lucas Siewert 12.0 .259 .364 2.3 0.1 2.3
12 Mitch Lombard 2.0 0.0 0.5 0.0
13 Josh Repine 2.0 .000 0.0 0.0 0.0
Provided by CBB at Sports Reference: View Original Table
Generated 12/7/2016.


Three Keys:

- Force the ball inside: Colorado suffocates three point shooters. Xavier is going to lift from deep, but it would behoove them to work inside out. Colorado has Gordon, Fortune, White who all block shots at at least a 3% (Gordon is 5.5%), so Gaston's erratic work around the rim may continue. Sean O'Mara can work against this group though, especially if he is ready for the second man, usually White, and find someone spotting up.

- Take care of the ball: Xavier was absurdly wasteful with possessions against Baylor. The Buffaloes don't intend to force turnovers, so when they do their defense becomes even more dangerous. This comes down to Edmond Sumner initiating well and not getting moving too quickly in an attempt to force his offense. He'll get to the line either way, throwing the thing all over the place just short circuits the rest of the offense. Ed's turnover rate is actually up about 2% from last year. That needs to change soon.

- Get to the line: At the very least, shooting terribly from the line again will make it easy to diagnose what happened if X loses again. In reality, Colorado allows free throw attempts on 32% of opponent's shots. That's an exploitable number if Xavier doesn't let themselves get turned into a jumpshooting team. Surely they won't shoot 57% from the line again...right?

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