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Congratulations on being positive! I'm going to be positive, too. Sure, Xavier lost, but road games are hard, especially road games at Colorado and road games that are the second of back-to-back tough road games. It stings to go to 7-2 after being 7-0, but there's a long season left in front of us, and the benefit of a major conference is that there are plenty of chances for good wins left even after the calendar turns. Here's what to tell your negative friends today.
Trevon is back
After starting the season slowly, Bluiett is looking like an All-American right now. In the past two games, he's shooting a blistering 12-23 from behind the arc. Even better, he had the full array on display last night, showing the ball to get a step on his defender before finishing well and getting to the line. Throw in 3 assists and only 1 turnover and Xavier's best player is suddenly looking the part. We've got a lead dog to hitch things to.
The rest of the team isn't this bad
Take away Tre's 6-13 from deep last night and Xavier was 1-14, including 0-5 from JP and 0-4 from Kaiser. Those guys are not going to shoot like that the rest of the way, and a combined 1-9 from them would have made this a much different game. Coach Mack seems on the brink of confirming that we'll have Myles back for conference play, and RaShid Gaston finally had the game we were waiting for him to have. By the time of the year that matters the most, this team will look totally different than it did last night.
Coach Mack is playing the long game
You probably noticed Colorado's 15-0 run last night. You probably also noticed that Coach Mack didn't call a timeout until the run got to 9-0 and had already cost Xavier the lead. Sure, a timeout earlier may have saved the game, but Coach Mack isn't in the business of pulling out all the stops to win in December. Xavier's season melted away last year when they weren't equipped to hold off Wisconsin's late run and ultimately couldn't salt away a game they led by 9. Coach Mack is throwing this team into the deep end of the pool now so they'll have figured out how to keep their heads above water come March.