Villanova crushes Xavier in Philly, as per annual tradition

Villanova was up 12-4 at the first media timeout. It didn’t get much better from there. Xavier thrusted and parried and was able to have the ball down 7 going into the final media timeout of the first half. A good war there and the Muskies would be in the position to make it a second half.

Instead, X allowed a 10-5 run to end the first half and effectively the game as a contest. The second half had lots of things happen in it, but all of them combined to be a perfunctory playing out of the final 20 minutes of a game that had long been over.

The starting five is struggling

Q, JP, and Tre combined to be something worse than merely ineffective. Kaiser hit one three and then apparently walked straight to the bus. Tyrique never got going. A team that has real players coming off the bench is only deep if the dudes who are starting play like they deserve it. Xavier’s five isn’t right now.

X sucks in Philly

Since the Muskies joined the Big East, they’ve averaged a 23-point loss in their games at Nova. This was just more of the same in that sense. At some point in time, Xavier is going to have to be able to at least challenge Villanova to be a force in this league. Xavier will never be anything other than the little brother as long as this annual capitulation in Philadelphia keeps up.

Kerem Kanter wasn’t garbage tonight

Pretty much everyone else was.