Xavier undefeated, yet unhappy
Doug Tifft
Sports Editor
Erika Bresee
Senior B.J. Raymond, one of the few players head coach Sean Miller was pleased with after a win over Auburn, scored a career high 32 points.
In a week when the Xavier Musketeers reached their highest December ranking in school history – No. 9 in the Dec. 8 Associated Press poll – head coach Sean Miller had plenty of points of contention with his team.
Miller’s main source of unhappiness was his team’s second half play in the Dec. 3 81-74 victory over Auburn, in which the Musketeers built a large lead only to see the Tigers whittle it down to single digits in the closing minutes.
The Musketeers (7-0) jumped out to a 22 point lead with 11:36 left in the game before allowing the Tigers to close on a 40-25 run. Miller attributed the late Auburn run to problems by some of the Xavier players’ lack of intensity.
“I was disappointed with our team’s effort level. We have to address a couple of players. You are not going to start, you are not going to play, unless you play hard,” Miller said. “We gotta run back [on defense].”
The lack of defensive intensity down the stretch has become a common theme for this season’s Musketeers.
Xavier allowed a 23 point lead with six minutes left be slimmed to 14 points in the final minutes against Toledo, and escaped with a three point win over Findlay in the exhibition game after holding a lead of greater than 20 points.
Miller noted the propensity to collapse late, and plans to cure the problem through added intensity in practice.
“The good news for me is that I have seven days before our next game, and around here it is going to be like we are 0-7,” Miller said.
Miller cited Xavier’s lack of strength with the ball, inability to accept fouls, or make the subsequent foul shots, lethargic effort in transition and offensive mistakes such as giving up the dribble in poor areas.
Although he was apprehensive to name which players he was most displeased with, Miller did not seem to like the way that his upperclassmen leaders Derrick Brown and C.J. Anderson played, citing a poor game by Anderson and noting that the team needs Brown to “run hard.”
While Anderson and Brown may not have put forth their best efforts, the team’s other senior leader B.J. Raymond played the best game of his career, scoring a career high 32 points and grabbing six rebounds.
The 32 points was the highest total by a Xavier player since Stanley Burrell scored 32 against Duquesne in February of 2005.
The offensive outburst was fueled by a hot night from long-range, as Raymond was 7-9 from three point range.
Raymond, who had been shooting 28.6 percent from three point range on the year, attributed the success to some changes in practice.
“I went back to the drawing board. My mechanics were good tonight: my balance, my follow-through. It had nothing to do with me lucking it in. [Once I found my shot], my teammates just found me, and I made some shots,” Raymond said.
While Raymond was delivering for what Miller called “one of the best games that I have seen a Xavier player play in my eight years here,” the rest of the Musketeers were struggling and failing to play at full intensity, something that did not escape Raymond.
“We are probably the worst 7-0 team in the country right now. We have to get better,” Raymond said.
The voters in the recent polls had a different impression, boosting the Musketeers into the top 10 for the first time this season. Miller believed his team would accept the honor humbly.
“I think that our players understand that, because it is December, it is not as significant to be in the top 10 as it would be in February,” Miller said. “I don’t look at anyone on our team who truly believes that we are a top 10 team. I think we believe in ourselves, but we have a lot of things to work on.”
Xavier will get an opportunity to work on those things on Dec. 10, when they take on Ohio University. The Bobcats are led by senior forward Jerome Tillman, averaging 20.7 points and 10.7 rebounds on the year.
After the Bobcats, Xavier will travel across town on Saturday for the Skyline Chili Crosstown Shootout with Cincinnati.
Women upset in Crosstown
Ken Burton
Sports Writer
Dani Meiners
Freshman guard Tyeasha Moss could not help Xavier from long distance, missing all three of her three point attempts in Sunday’s loss to Cincinnati.
Despite being favored against Crosstown rival University of Cincinnati on Sunday, the Xavier women’s basketball team came up short against the Bearcats, 65-55.
This year’s installment of the women’s Skyline Chili Crosstown Shootout was one that, on paper, wasn’t close.
It seemed the only advantages for the Bearcats were the disadvantages of the Musketeers: junior forward Amber Harris was not playing due to her left knee injury and the Musketeers were away from its raucous home crowd.
The No. 21 Xavier Musketeers were riding a five game winning streak stemming from the experience of close loses to two top 10 teams.
Xavier came into the Crosstown led by star sophomore center Ta’Shia Phillips, who looked poised in the post and had managed to keep out of foul trouble in the last few games.
Before the much anticipated matchup between the bitter rivals, even Cincinnati head coach J. Kelley Hall admitted there were serious matchup problems for his team.
The Bearcats’ head man recognized how dangerous Xavier can be from long distance.
“[Xavier head coach Kevin McGuff] has three kids that can really hurt you shooting the basketball. Jerri [Taylor] is shooting it good, [Tudy] Reed is shooting it good, and Dee Dee [Jernigan] can come in and hurt you,” Hall said. “We’ve got to look at it from a different game plan there, that we really realize how well they shoot the ball from the perimeter this year.”
Although Hall was perplexed on what defense would best slow the potent Musketeers offense, he correctly identified the key to the game: rebounding.
Identifying the key would be much different than controlling that aspect of the game, however.
Upon corralling 61 boards in its Friday win over Akron, the Musketeers would
enter the Crosstown averaging 11.5 more rebounds than UC.
“You won’t beat Xavier if you don’t out-rebound them, I can
promise you that,” Hall said.
With that, Hall informed his team they would be implementing a match-up zone defense, a hybrid of man-to-man and zone defense, in hopes of containing Phillips while still being able to defend the three point shot.
Despite a career-high 13 rebounds for junior forward April Phillips and the best efforts of Xavier’s other Phillips, Ta’Shia, the Bearcats out-willed the Musketeers on the boards for the game, winning the rebounding margin by three.
Bearcat junior Kahla Roudebush scored a game high 17 points to lead UC, who with the win, earned the Kendle Cup, the trophy given to the winner of the women’s Crosstown Shootout, for the second consecutive year.
“We got them to miss, but they were able to get those offensive rebounds. And that was a real killer for us,” said McGuff.
Due to final examinations, Xavier’s student-athletes will have the week off to study before hitting the hardwood with a Sunday, Dec. 14 non-conference matchup with Michigan State at 2 p.m. at the Cintas Center.
'Xavier Tales' chronicles Xavier’s rich history
Doug Tifft
Sports Editor
Xavier University has had a long and storied tradition of basketball success, but not until 2008 has the program been captured in the pages of a published book.
Micheal Perry, former sports editor and Xavier beat writer for the Cincinnati Enquirer, recently finished his second book, “Xavier Tales,” chronicling the storied history of Xavier basketball.
The book contains a number of different anecdotes about the inner workings of the program. Everything from the humorous story of Xavier center Kevin Frye being fooled by a prank phone call from teammate James Posey before the Crosstown Shootout in 1999, to former head coach Skip Prosser treating the Xavier beat writers to a night on the town during a 1997 trip to Pittsburgh is included.
Perry spent the last year meticulously gathering memories, battle stories
and humorous tales from the locker room in preparing to write the book.
From the time he took over the Xavier beat report for the 1996 Crosstown Shootout
– a game featuring a miraculous Lenny Brown shot to knock off the highly
ranked Bearcats – to his last season in 2001, Perry interacted with some
of the great personalities in Xavier basketball history.
“I was there during a really great period. So there was Gary Lumpkin,
Darnell Williams, Lenny Brown, James Posey, Sherwin Anderson, Pat Kelsey. That
whole group was a lot of fun to deal with,” Perry said.
Forming relationships with those players proved to be very rewarding for Perry while he was following the Xavier program.
“[I enjoyed covering] a guy like Lenny Brown, who when you first meet him, he does not trust you, shouldn’t trust you. [I got] to know Lenny in the three years that I covered him to the point where I went to Delaware in the project where he grew up,” Perry said. “Developing a relationship with a guy like that, where we could not have come from two more different places, is what was always fun about covering college sports.”
Perry also enjoyed watching David West, a 2003 graduate who won the National Player of the Year Award that year, grow into the player that he later became.
Beyond Perry’s time on the job, “Xavier Tales” also covers the Xavier program from its infancy, through the 1958 NIT Championship, and the expanded success of the program under former head coach Bob Staak.
The book, published by Pone Press, is available in the form of signed copies at the Xavier bookstore for $24.95.
Xavier can win local respect with win in Crosstown
Tyler Grote
Sports Writer
If this year marks your first Crosstown Shootout, then welcome to the greatest event in the city of Cincinnati.
This is the event that divides the city in half: The loyal fans of the University
of Cincinnati Bearcats and the ardent followers of the Xavier Musketeers.
The differences are plentiful: blue vs. red, private vs. public, Norwood vs.
Clifton—but as newcomers to this storied rivalry will learn, Xavier is
and will always be fighting an uphill battle in the war to gain the recognition
and respect that the UC Bearcats are so accustomed to in the Queen City.
I’ve grown up in this city, and friends and family from UC always enjoy asking me how Xavier’s football team is doing.
Naturally, I patiently await the arrival of basketball season where Xavier
gets its chance to remind the city that there are two universities in Cincinnati.
It turns out, however, that it’s easier to grab ESPN’s attention
by getting a win than it is to grab Cincinnati’s attention by getting
ranked.
It’s a common trend — year in and year out, big-brother UC will always get the coverage over Xavier.
What makes for a more newsworthy headline than Xavier beating a No. 12 Memphis team who just played for a National Championship? The Bearcats beating UNLV.
The Enquirer reserves plenty of space for Xavier on the side of the front page or in the depths of the sports section.
It’s nothing new.
Bob Huggins had a knack for dismissing Xavier and the annual matchup, calling
it “just another game,” therefore downplaying any importance.
Comments like these trickled down to the current students of UC, who have never
even had the opportunity to watch Huggins’ face turn pink on the sidelines
of Fifth Third Arena.
Junior Matt Kallmeyer from UC says, “I’d like to see what [Xavier] could do in a major conference. They’ve had success in a perpetually atrocious A-10 conference.”
Other UC students expressed similar feelings towards the A-10, stating it was a joke and find it humorous that our big conference rival game is against the Dayton Flyers while they take on the likes of UConn and Notre Dame.
So, how can Xavier shed the comments from Clifton? Beat the Bearcats.
Cincinnati is a city of tradition and is not always open to change.
Make beating the University of Cincinnati an annual holiday, one just as regular as Christmas.
