The end was worth the means
Adventurous year ends in Sweet Sixteen, new coach for Musketeer men
Doug Tifft
Sports Editor
Newswire photo by Erika Bresee
Senior B.J. Raymond led Xavier with 14.1 points per game on his way to earning first team All-Atlantic 10 honors.
The 2008-09 season for the Xavier men’s basketball team was the ultimate roller-coaster ride of emotions.
The Musketeers entered the year on the high of ‘the greatest season in school history,’ in which they won a school record 30 games and reached the Elite Eight in 2007-08.
The 2008-09 campaign began with great expectations—a 9-0 start vaulted Xavier to a No. 7 national ranking—and ended with a satisfying, if tantalizing, result—a 60-55 loss to No. 1 seed Pittsburgh in the Sweet Sixteen.
Along the way Xavier saw many high points on the year, such as sophomore Dante Jackson’s high-court heave to beat Virginia Tech 63-62 in the semifinal of the Puerto Rico Season Tipoff on Nov. 21. There were also low points, like the 82-64 thrashing at the hands of Duke in Xavier’s primetime CBS showcase on Dec. 20.
As the season progressed, the Musketeers saw their youth mature into veterans. Jackson was a key cog at point guard in NCAA victories over Portland State and Wisconsin, and freshmen Kenny Frease, Terrell Holloway and Brad Redford all saw significant late-game action in March.
The key to reaching the promised land of another Sweet Sixteen, however, was the leadership of the upperclassmen.
Senior B.J. Raymond was a first team All-Atlantic 10 performer, and has built himself up to receive a whiff of attention from the NBA scouts.
Fellow senior C.J. Anderson battled through a late-season shooting slump to be the vocal guidance in the locker room for an inexperienced bunch.
Redshirt-junior Derrick Brown earned second team All-Conference honors, and raised his NBA draft stock high enough to get an invitation to the NBA pre-draft camp in Chicago.
As the Musketeers ended the season, they expected to bid farewell to the leadership of Raymond and Anderson. What they did not expect was to see head coach Sean Miller forsake the Xavier sidelines for the head coaching position at the University of Arizona on April 6.
Miller’s departure—which came after a long stretch of wavering by the man who had spent five years at Xavier—elicited an angry response from the fanbase and sent the Xavier administration scrambling to locate a new head coach.
The Miller departure was the final downswing on what proved to be an eventful, bumpy ride for the 2008-09 Musketeers. However, the program appears poised to provide yet another interesting ride in 2009-10, as new head coach Chris Mack will lead a squad deemed to be in the top 10 nationally by many pundits.
As long as he avoids the downswings, Mack should have everyone exiting the ride of 2009-10 as happy as they were in 2008-09.
Women overcome doubts to make NCAA
Ken Burton
Staff Writer
Newswire photo by Danielle Meiners
Sophomore Ta’Shia Phillips was named the Atlantic 10 Player of the Year after averaging 13.9 points and 12.1 rebounds.
In the months leading up to the 2008-09 season a myriad of analysts and experts began speculating about just how special the Xavier women’s basketball team could be.
The Musketeers returned all five starters—two of which were preseason All-American candidates—from its 2007-08 NCAA tournament team. The team was coming off back-to-back Atlantic 10 championships and NCAA Tournament berths.
Just days before the annual Blue-White preseason game, Xavier received disheartening news: junior All-American candidate Amber Harris had torn cartilage in her left knee during practice and was to be shelved for nearly four months.
Xavier lost a player who scored over 1,000 points, broke the career record for blocks at Xavier and had 598 career boards in her first two years on campus.
Despite Harris’ absence in the lineup, the Musketeers found chemistry early with the insertion of junior April Phillips into the frontcourt. With the team clicking, Xavier rattled off 15 straight wins to end the regular season while leading the country in field goal percentage defense and shattering school records in both offensive and defensive statistics.
Head coach Kevin McGuff also reached a milestone of his own, becoming Xavier’s all-time leader in wins as a head coach. A 67-44 pummeling of the Kentucky Wildcats on Dec. 2, 2008, put McGuff over the top with win 136.
In 2008-09 Xavier was paced by sophomore and A-10 player of the year, Ta’Shia Phillips and by the leadership of seniors Tudy Reed and Jerri Taylor. Behind their exemplary play, the Musketeers earned the No. 5 seed and a date with the Gonzaga Bulldogs in Seattle, WA in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Despite Phillips setting three school records—points, rebounds and field goals in the NCAA tournament—Xavier was upset by the No. 12 seed Bulldogs, 74-59. It was the fourth time the Musketeers have gone one-and-done in the NCAA tournament in McGuff’s seven year tenure.
The loss was not the end of the road, however, as Xavier looks to be loaded once again for the 2009-10 season.
Harris is expected to be at full strength for the fall to rejoin Phillips in the frontcourt. Key contributors Special Jennings, Dee Dee Jernigan and Tyesha Moss will be counted on in the backcourt.
McGuff will also welcome Katie Rutan, a versatile 5’8” guard from Ambler, Pa. to the team. Rutan was among ESPN’s top 100 high school senior recruits.
With the strength of the returning squad, the 2008-09 campaign could prove to be a harbinger of future success.
Volleyball inconsistent in A-10
Scott Mueller
Asst. Sports Editor
The Xavier University volleyball team had a mediocre showing this year, finishing just above .500 at 16-15.
The team got off to a fast start, winning its first four matches, including the Ohio State Sports Imports Classic.
“That was the first tournament of the year and I thought we were moving in the right direction,” head coach Floyd Deaton said.
It looked like it would be a promising Atlantic 10 season for the Musketeers, as they opened the conference season 7-0.
However, after the hot start, Xavier would drop five of the next six A-10 games.
The Muskies earned the fourth seed in the A-10 tournament, and defeated Temple before falling to Saint Louis in the semi-final.
The Billikens proved to be a thorn in the Musketeer’s side all year. In the three matches against Saint Louis, Xavier was defeated in straight sets every time.
Consistency was the biggest problem for the volleyball team this year.
“We had some real highs, and sometimes when you look out there and you can’t figure why they’re playing like that,” Deaton said. “It just never seemed, for maybe more than one match in a row [that we were] in sync.”
The 2009 season looks promising for the Musketeers, however.
That is not to say that graduating seniors Megan Hellman and Jenn Welsh will not be missed. Hellman lead the team in service aces on the year, and both Hellman and Welsh were in the top five in digs on the year.
“I’m looking forward to next year. We’re losing two seniors, great leaders, but losing two seniors and having the nucleus of a team back makes you smile a little bit,” said Deaton.
Deaton is already making goals for the 2009-10 season.
“We want to be in the NCAA tournament,” Deaton said. “We’ve been in the NCAA tournament last year, with this bunch basically, and we want to do it again and this time not just settle on getting there.”
XU soccer takes hope from 2008
The 2008-09 season was a trying one for both the men’s and women’s soccer teams.
The men’s team finished the season on a high note, defeating Dayton, 1-0. However, that was one of the few bright spots.
Overall, the team finished with a 3-12-3 record, including only two wins in the Atlantic 10 Conference.
Another positive aspect of the season was junior Jake Vollmer being named to the D-1 All- Ohio Team for the second straight year.
The team will lose seniors Tommy Clines, Jimmy Cummings, Joe Diederich, Michael Scholten and Adam Sokolowski.
The women’s team did not fare any better. Overall the team finished with a 1-16-2 record, and zero wins in the A-10.
The women’s team will look to improve on last year with the help of new assistant coach Josh Green.
Xavier’s lone win came on the road at Ohio University.
One bright spot for the women’s team was freshman Jessica Brooks. Brooks led the team with five goals.
After disappointing seasons, both Xavier University soccer teams hope that they are on the way up.
