‘Sweet’ redemption
Doug Tifft
Sports Editor
Patrick Stevenson
Stanley Burrel looks for an open man in Xavier's 85-78 win over Purdue.
The stated goal at the beginning of the season for the 2007-08 Xavier Musketeers men’s basketball team was to advance further in the NCAA Tournament than they had a year ago.
A year ago was a loss that a few of you may remember, a string of missed free throws, questionable calls and desperation shots combined to steal an upset victory over Ohio State from last year’s Musketeers.
When Xavier faced the situation of a second round collapse this time around they responded resiliently, and came away with a 85-78 win over Purdue to move on to the Sweet Sixteen round of the NCAA Tournament.
Xavier came out to a slow start against Purdue, just as they had in their first round game against Georgia, and trailed Purdue 9-0 early on.
Led by their stingy defense, the Musketeers responded with a 17-3 run moments later to grab control of the game heading into half time.
Xavier held Purdue to a season low 38 percent shooting from the field, and 38 percent from three point range, a key to the Boilermakers’ success this season.
An important factor in shutting down the Purdue offense was Derrick Brown’s perimeter defense on All Big Ten First Team performer Robbie Hummel.
“I tried to make him take hard shots,” said Brown. “He shoots 50 percent from three. If he shoots two, he’s going to make one. I tried to pressure him.”
Despite the tough defense by the Musketeers, Purdue was able to make a 11-0 run late in the second half to capture a 61-60 lead. Unlike last year, though, Xavier was able to withstand the punch and make a 7-0 run of their own to take perminant control of the game.
The key play of the run came on the first possession after Purdue took the lead, when B.J. Raymond came off of a screen in the lane to convert a short jump shot while being fouled.
Patrick Stevenson
“That was major. Purdue made a big time run and we had to respond,” C.J. Anderson said of the play that head coach Sean Miller said was the “biggest basket of the game.”
Xavier will need more clutch baskets like that from role players like Raymond if they hope to advance further in the Tournament.
The first step of that journey will come against West Virginia on Thursday in Phoenix.
The Mountaineers advanced to this stage with a win over Duke on Saturday.
Xavier is familiar with the brand of basketball that West Virginia likes to play under Bob Huggins, who was the former coach of Crosstown rival Cincinnati.
The Mountaineers are led by 6’8 junior forward Joe Alexander, who scored 22 points and had 11 rebounds against Duke, and averages 16.8 points and 6.3 rebounds per game on the season.
“Joe Alexander is a really unique player. He can score, but the way he can score is by jumping over the people guarding him. He is just really athletic and strong.” Miller said.
Miller hinted that Xavier will focus a good portion of their defensive gameplan on neutralizing Alexander.
“Derrick Brown will guard him, at least for a portion of the game. I do believe there will be more than just one player guarding him. But that will be a big matchup,” Miller said. “I don’t know if you can go into the game trying to shut Joe Alexander down, as much as you just don’t want him to have the game of his life. You just don’t want him to have a huge game where he wills his team to a win.”
Similar to Xavier, West Virginia has an experienced, senior point gaurd to steer their ship. Darris Nichols adds 10.8 points and 3.3 assists per game.
The rest of the Mountaineer team consists of a group of solid role players. Alex Rouff provides a solid backcourt mate for Nichols, and Da’Sean Butler compliments Alexander effectively in the frontcourt.
If Xavier is to avoid a disappointing loss, like last season, they will need to continue their trademark man-to-man defensive intensity, and prevent West Virginia’s role players from becoming the difference in the ballgame.
Women knocked out of NCAA Tournament
Late run falls short; leaves team looking forward to next season
Emily Neubauer
Sports Writer
goxavier.com
Freshman center Ta’Shia Phillips had nine points and 16 rebounds in Xavier’s NCAA loss to Nebraska.
The No. 9 Xavier Musketeers fell to No. 8 Nebraska, 61-58 in the first round of the 2008 Women’s NCAA Tournament.
Junior guard Jerri Taylor led the way for the Muskies, scoring 19 points, including five three-pointers.
Sophomore Amber Harris followed close behind with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Freshman center Ta’Shia Phillips finished with 16 rebounds and nine points.
Unfortunately the effort wasn’t enough, as an intense rally fell short and Xavier’s season came to an end.
Xavier struggled offensively right away, missing five of their first six shots and registering five turnovers in only five minutes of play.
During this time, Nebraska was able to build a substantial 13-2 lead with 16:20 left in the first half.
Xavier didn’t give up, however, going on an 11-4 spurt of their own and narrowing the deficit to a mere four points.
The Huskers would strike back, however, with a 7-0 run over a 1:50 span, and led by as many as 14 after Kelsey Griffin extended the run to 13-3 when she made a jumper.
Nebraska led by 10 at the break and built its lead to as many as 15 when Cory Montgomery drained a 3-pointer with 17:10 left to play.
Xavier fought back and went on an 8-0 run over a 3:20 stretch to pull to within four points, at 56-52, after Tudy Reed nailed a shot with 50 seconds to go.
The Musketeers got a steal on the next possession, but missed a jumper and two put-backs in an effort to cut the lead to two points.
After two Nebraska free throws, Harris nailed a three pointer with under 10 seconds to cut the lead to three points, but Xavier was unable to force another turnover.
Xavier ends the season with a 24-9 record.
After the game, coach Kevin McGuff had this to say: “I want to congratulate Nebraska on their victory; they played an excellent game and certainly played harder and competed more towards 40 minutes than we did today.”
“We did a lot of very positive things this season and I think at the end of the game we finally found a sense of urgency and I just wish we would have found that earlier.”
Xavier enjoyed a successful season overall, as both Ta’Shia Phillips and Amber Harris celebrated various awards this season, such as A-10 Player of the Week on several occasions. The Muskies also won the Atlantic 10 tournament for the second straight year and were able to play in the Big Dance.
The Musketeers notched key victories over nationally ranked North Carolina State and George Washington this season. They finished the year at 24-9 overall and 11-3 in the Atlantic 10,a third place finish.
Every player contributed to the women’s success this season, and the prospects for next season look bright.
With no graduating seniors, the team will be able to return ready to win.
“It’s certainly exciting to think about the possibilities of having everybody back. I hope we can take today and use it as a real learning experience,” Coach McGuff said.
“Like any team, we need to have a big off-season but with such young talent, I know I’m going to really challenge and push our team during the off-season to make sure that given an opportunity to get back to the NCAA Tournament, we show up and put our best foot forward.”
Most important weekend in XU history?
Doug Tifft
Sports Editor
After watching this past weekend’s games I was thinking about all of the possibilities that could result from Xavier making a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.
The impact of Tournament success affects the school far more than establishing a sterling basketball reputation. The university is on prominent display for the consideration of perspective students.
If you are a high school student looking to apply to schools, step one is merely hearing about them. Let’s face it, not many teenagers are going to pour over U.S. News and World Reports about who has a superior program in this or that.
What ultimately drives up application numbers is exposure, and the NCAA Tournament provides that to millions of people.
Xavier experienced a spike in applications to their largest figures ever immediately after they made an Elite Eight run in 2004.
So that brought me to this question: Is this the most important weekend in the history of Xavier University?
Xavier stands on the verge of opening the new Xavier Square, as evidenced by the destruction of the Zumbiel Plant this past weekend, and students who could be attracted by Tourney success have nice pictures to look at to show them what the campus would look like if they were to attend Xavier.
The timing is perfect for Xavier to make a deep run, dare I say Final Four, and transition itself into a nationally prominent university.
Also, teams that make the Final Four tend to bring in significant amounts of money to the school. So the university could milk the basketball cash cow further to aid campus development.
For the basketball program itself, the ramifications of the success are equally as daunting.
Many players in the NBA Draft are moved up significantly or drafted simply because their school had successful NCAA Tournament runs. Again, the Xavier team from 2004 is a prime example of this.
Currently none of the three Xavier seniors are listed by any Draft “expert” to be a first or second round pick in the June Draft. However, grabbing national headlines for a week leading up to a trip to San Antonio would likely get Josh Duncan, Stanley Burrell and Drew Lavender a few try-outs with NBA teams, and hopefully a few more NBA players for Xavier to put in the media guide.
Recruiting tends to be an area that is dominated by the teams that make perennial Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight and Final Four appearances. The recruiting pool that these schools draw from is a collection of the top 100 or so players in the country.
Xavier has broken into that select group of schools to some degree with their 2009 recruiting class, which consists of possible recruits Ari Stewart (number 15 prospect in the country according to Rivals.com), Terrence Shannon (number 44) and Durand Scott (number 64), all of whom appear to be waiting to make their college choices until the summer. A deep tournament run, and the probability of a prominent role in the Musketeer system from the get-go might slip Xavier ahead of the UNC’s or the Memphis’s of the basketball world for those prospects.
A lot of things seem to have crescendoed this weekend for Xavier University, who may stand a mere 80 minutes of basketball away from altering the future of our school.
Doug Tifft
Sports Editor
Baseball team takes two at Dayton
The Xavier baseball team improved to 6-10 on the season and 2-1 in the Atlantic 10 Conference after taking two of three games from the Dayton Flyers over the weekend in Dayton. Sophomore Zac Richards had a standout weekend, going 5-10 with seven RBI and his fourth home run of the season.
Also for the Musketeers, Mike Creevy (3-1) and Micheal Lucas (1-1) picked up wins, and Jordan Conley recorded his first save in Saturday’s victory. Xavier hits the road for five games this week.
They will play non-conference games against Kentucky and Indiana, before resuming conference play against Massachusetts this weekend. Currently they are a game back of a host of schools who stand at 3-0 in the A-10 standings.
