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Xavier went to the Windy City needing a victory to clinch the #1 seed in the Big East tournament and keep a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament in their sights and looked like a team that was not terribly concerned with either of those things for much of the game. Poor outside shooting and an unwillingness to do anything but shoot threes hamstrung Xavier on offense all day.
Off Day Tre is still a weapon
Xavier’s talisman struggled through a first half in which he was held to 5 points but came to life during winning time in the second half. He snapped off 5-7 at one point and ended up leading all scorers with 22 on the day, needing 6-16 to get there. Even on a day when his jumper took some time to get rolling, Tre managed to get X across the line on a big day for Xavier.
March jitters come for us all
X turned it over a season high 20 times today and had turnovers in some high leverage possessions today, including on their final possession of the game. After struggling off and on with turnovers all year, it could be seen as a huge step in the wrong direction, but that would be ignoring the evidence of the past two months that this is a high powered offense that can score with just about anybody in the nation. Was today’s game concerning given the importance of the rest of the games Xavier plays this year? Sure. Does it mean that the wheels have fallen off and X is going to bomb out of the postseason because of ball security issues? Nope.
This is an extremely special team
Xavier just ran the gauntlet in one of the top 3 conferences in College Basketball and went 15-3. Let that sink in for a moment. That game was not pretty to watch, but Xavier won all the same. The Big East was a far off shining beacon of basketball excellence to X fans for so many years and now in the last 5 years Xavier has joined, become competitive, and won a still excellent league. The days of fretting about bubble watches are over for X, they are the kings of the Big East (for now) and even ugly wins like today’s should be appreciated.