Xavier power rankings 3/1

The calendar has finally turned from one of the most miserable months in Ohio to the best month of the entire basketball year. From February's 85 days of gray skies and a 40-degree drizzle, a light has dawned, and that light is March. Conference tournaments are tipping off today. Xavier has one regular season game left. It's all about to jump off, and here is how the Muskies stack up on day one.

13 and 12. RaShid Gaston and Eddie Ekiyor
These guys have worked tirelessly since small times to be on a team that is where Xavier is right now. The fact that they can do everything but actually participate in games has to be killing them on some level.

11. Makinde London
Makinde has an ORtg of 121 on .556/.500/.500 shooting and DReb%/OReb% of 18.2%/11.9% in conference play. #FreeMakinde.

10. Sean O'Mara
Not, if we're being honest, a great week for Sean. A DNP-CD in the biggest game of the year isn't going on the top line of his basketball resume, and he wasn't resounding against Seton Hall in just four minutes of action. Not much to report here, really.

9. Larry Austin, Jr.
The story basically never changes for Larry, so top marks to him for consistency. He plays tough defense and turns the ball over a hair too much. He is good in transition but can't make his athleticism play in the half court. He is 5-16 for his entire career on shots that aren't layups or dunks. Heck, he's only 23-50 at the rim. His role right now is rugged backup PG. His game will have to develop if he doesn't want that to be his ceiling.

8. Kaiser Gates
Gosh dang it man, start making your free throws. Other than that, I think the amount of playing time that Kaiser got against Villanova speaks to where he is as a player right now. Coach Mack trusts him on defense and his offensive game has been really good against the better competition (other than the free throw thing). I wasn't sure about where Kaiser would slot in when he signed with Xavier; I'm on board now.

7. Jalen Reynolds
Will he give me 8 minutes or 30? Will his ORtg be 50 or 125? Jalen has the potential to be just about dominant, but his actual production is maddeningly inconsistent. You couldn't look at his game log and realistically think that you could plan your attack around what he gives you. If he breaks out, Xavier will be a wrecking crew, but I feel like we've been waiting a long time for him to break out.

6. Remy Abell
Remy has continued to quietly round into form as the season has gone on. He isn't playing the kind of ball he did last year, but he remains a solid passive scoring option for when the ball comes to him or in transition. As long as Xavier doesn't have another really solid man defender, Remy won't drop too far. As long as he's not going out and getting buckets, he won't rise too far.

5. James Farr
Big Game James continues to be a bully in the paint. He's the best offensive rebounder in the conference and could be the best rebounder overall, he protects the rim well, and he's scoring pretty efficiently. Throw in an 80.4% mark from the line in the Big East and you're really onto something. The margin between him here and JP at #4 is razor thin, but JP's unique skill set gives him the tie breaker.

4. JP Macura
Speaking of which, Macura has been amazing for Xavier in conference play. He has been their best offensive player and has been a massively disruptive force literally all over the court. He hit Peak JP against Villanova, dropping 19 on 8-14/2-3/1-1 shooting and setting up the play that earned Nova's Kris Jenkins his 5th foul. There's nobody on the roster and maybe nobody in the league who brings the kind of catalytic chaos to the game that JP does.

3. Trevon Bluiett
He's a jump shooter, but he's a really doggone good one. After a slow start to conference play, he shot 16-43 (37.2%) from behind the arc in February. His rebounding percentages are down in conference play but right in line with where he has been boarding against top 100 teams all year. On a team that excels in sharing the ball, Tre's value is his ability to get something from just about nothing on his own on the offensive end.

2. Myles Davis
One of Xavier fans' biggest concerns coming into the year was whether or not the Muskies could replace Dee Davis at the point. They have. We knew Edmond Sumner might be a viable PG, but I think the emergence of Myles Davis as not only an on-court leader but also a distributor and game manager has been one of the underplayed storylines of the year for X. He leads the team in assists and assist rate and is shooting better deep into the season than he ever has before. Myles is a great senior leader for this team, which makes the fact that he's actually just a junior all the more awesome.

1. Edmond Sumner
Ed has been bad or absent in all of Xavier's losses. He has also been a negative contributor in a couple of Xavier's wins, but by and large Sumner's performance correlates fairly well with the result the team gets. It's hard to imagine Xavier winning two games in the second weekend without getting good play from Ed.