Monday morning coffee chat

As Sunday was spent mired in hoping that a bunch of teams would lose so the Browns still had a chance at the playoffs (mathematically, yes), and engaged in our weirdest Twitter beef since Brandon Randolph’s god father, the Conversation didn’t get out. maybe that’s for the best, as the tenor would likely have put a damper on the Christmas spirit your local church is trying to instill. Apparently, winning doesn’t cure all ills.

Joel: We’re soooo much better than EKU. That was blessedly perfunctory, but it didn’t do much for me beyond that. Anyone feeling meaningfully better than he/she did a week ago?

Donnie: I want to, but 27 turnovers are telling me otherwise. Especially against a team like EKU. [The last time Xavier turned the ball over that many times was in an era before gamelogs are available.]

Joel: Some turnovers just happen in the course of a game, but so many of those were just bad, careless basketball. This team has consistently played sloppily for stretches; it feel sometimes like they can’t get out of their own way. We are shooting 60.3% from inside the arc this season, best in the nation. It feels like we aren’t turning that into as much as we should be.

Brad: I don’t feel great about beating a bad team by just out-talenting them. We played like hot garbage again tonight but didn’t lose because it was EKU. These guys on Twitter who keep saying this team can win the Big East or even go 11-7 and sneak a good win or two must be watching a different squad. This team is bad right now, full stop.

Joel: I’m not sure I feel quite as strongly about it as you do, but I do think we are going to struggle against good teams that are willing to slow it down and force us to play in the half court. Of the 28 twos that we made agaisnt EKU, how many do we get if they’re (a) good and (b) not pressing? I mean, we dunked 18 times; I don’t recall any that weren’t off the press break. Zach and Tyrique combined to go 11-12; I remember two post up buckets between the two of them, though maybe there were more.

People are going to say the coach had X shooting good twos instead of bad jumpers, but I wonder if it was actually EKU who did that. At least we were finally decent from the line.

Brad: The whole thing is just so sad. We’re mining a blowout win over a pretty bad program for good news. On the other hand, Kyky Tandy looks like the truth. How are you going to be 6-1 and bang your chin on the rim? That’s hard to process. He followed that up with a light 44 in the next game.

Bryan: It is obviously not marquee win by any stretch, but it was nice to go into a game against a team from the OVC and end with a score that one would expect when a Big East team plays one from the OVC. I’ll be honest though, it is hard to be that excited about any win where we turn the ball over 27 times.

Brad: I’m afraid this is what it has come to. Even in beating bad teams, we look bad. It could be a long, cold winter.