Explorer #3

Because the Muskies do not have a game until Saturday against La Salle we here at the MB have decided to honor our opponent by counting down the five greatest explorers of all time.

Checking in at #3 is Juan Ponce de Leon.

Ponce de Leon is most famous for being the first known European to “discover” Florida. I put quotations around discover because really, he didn’t discover anything. Humans had been living in these lands for generations upon generations. These Europeans rode in on their high horse acting like no one had ever seen these places before. Sorry, had to get that off my chest.

The only thing most people know about Leon is that he searched in vain for the Fountain of Youth in Florida. Well that is only half true. According to Wikipedia, he had been looking for the waters of Bimini to cure his impotence. HA! I suppose that is one way to stay young. And while I’m sure we shall be reminded of this condition during the Super Bowl on Sunday, poor Ponce de Leon never found what he was searching for.

But we shouldn’t make fun of Leon too much. Cuz after all, he did discover Florida for all us peeps of Euro descent. And that can only mean one thing. Spring Break! We here at the MB celebrated spring break three times in the great state of Florida.

We already miss college desperately in these parts so the game on Saturday represents more than just Xavier basketball to us. It represents that fridge, too.

And this!

Go X!

Explorer Countdown #4

Coming in at our 4th place greatest explorer of all time is actually a duo. That’s right, it’s Lewis and Clark. No, not Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain, but Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

After the Louisiana Purchase, the West Coast was all the rage. So, Thomas Jefferson requested to Congress to include funding for an expedition of the Pacific Northwest, and it was ok’d, and urged to be kept a secret, as there were still Brits as well as those pesky French Canucks hanging around hunting and pretending that we didn’t just kick the piss out of them in the Revolutionary War. So we said that we were only trying to trade with the original Americans (Indians) and hardly talked about expedition for settlement.

Tommy Jeff picked Lewis, Lewis picked Clark, and Lewis and Clark picked 40 others to go with them. And so began the first American expedition to the west, beginning from the Dubois River, through the Ohio, to the second star on the right, and straight on till morning.

The first Native Americans they met were a friendly tribe of Yankton Sioux, who warned them of lesser friendly Sioux tribes ahead. But Lewis and Clark were all like, sure, whatever, we can take them. But before fighting, both sides pussed out, and our American heroes fled westward until winter came. Not willing to travel in the cold and snowy weather, they took camp in the Mandan tribe’s territory. But that’s cool, cuz I don’t even like going up my driveway when there’s snow. Here, they built a fort and hung out with a French-speaking part-Indian with a really hard name to pronounce who was married to Sacagawea, a Shoshone Indian. Sacagawea translated for the Americans through the rest of the journey.

A bunch of people from their party were sent back with all kinds of information and mappings from the newfound area (to American White folk, that is), including a live prairie dog, which was still alive when it was given to Thomas Jefferson in a box. They must’ve poked holes in the side. After they made it to the Pacific, the crew split into two different groups so they could explore more. Lewis’s group ended up killing two Blackfeet Indians for trying to steal weapons. These were the only Native Americans that were killed during the entire expedition. The two teams reunited and took the Missouri River home to St. Louis.

Lewis & Clark were the first Americans to see the undeveloped west. They described 1780 new plants and 122 species and subspecies of animals, mapped rivers, mountains, and lakes of the American West, sparked all kinds of interest of the west throughout the ‘States, and opened up diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the Native Americans(yeah, that worked out well…). I mean, if it weren’t for them, think of all the cool stuff we wouldn’t have…

The factoids were all supplied by Wikipedia. The wit came straight from my noggin.

Explorer Countdown

Because the Muskies do not have a game until Saturday against La Salle we here at the MB have decided to honor our opponent by counting down the five greatest explorers of all time in descending order from now until Friday.

Today, we take a look at the little known Pierre Francois-Xavier de Charlevoix. Obviously, he is awesome because he has Xavier in his name and as you may have guessed he was also a Jesuit priest from France. He lived from 1682 until 1761. He is the author of some of the first written accounts of North America. According to this site, he spent 14 years in North America. He noted how the coming together of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers would be key to settlement and military strategy. He also survived a shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico, so he’s got that going for him.

Wikipedia also has my back. According to his Wiki page he is known as the first historian of New France as he wrote a book about his experience upon his return to France.

Because he is French and Jesuit I figured I’d pass along this tidbit as well. If one goes to Xavier’s official athletic page, you can find out why the nickname “Musketeers” was chosen. “In naming the Musketeers, Father Finn was not only giving rebirth to a concept of chivalry that is among France’s most treasured traditions, but he was also providing permanent recognition to Xavier’s strong ties with French origins and culture.” I know I’m probably in the minority here, but I think that is just awesome.  A common theme in today’s America is a complete contempt for the French. But at least the Musketeer stood for something back in the day. And I’d certainly rather be represented in that light than by a dumb animal like a Bearcat, or whatever a “Flyer” is suppose to represent.

Woah…

So we’re 15th on both polls. Awesome. I’m a little surprised we are that high, but a lot of ranked teams were losing games. So I’ll take it. And we’re a 3 seed in the updated Bracketology. Wow. All we gotta do is keep on winning, and we’ll keep getting ranked higher. Simple, yeah?

Everyone’s concern here has got to be that the high rankings and the ESPN.com write ups get to their heads again and they forget to play inspired ball. Also, those A10 teams are gonna be agunnin’ for us still as always, as we are the team to beat in this league as usual. But, I have confidence in Coach Milla and the boys. They already went through the whole thinking-we’re-so-good-and-forgetting-to-play-hard thing. We’ve learned, moved on, and were highly rewarded with a great ranking and lots of press. But March is a long way away. This great defense has got to keep up. We shot extremely poorly against UMass and still won, because we played great D. Drew is still playing amazing bball. He had 9 rebounds…9 rebounds against the Minute Men. Boy am I going to miss this lil’ guy next year. We kept their scorers in check and took another road game.

La Salle at home this La Saturday. I will be attending this game with my fellow blogger, Mr. Cody. Proly not much chance to move too many spots up unless more highly ranked teams blow it, as we only play Saturday. Still gotta beat the Explorers, though.

Go X! Beat these things!

Xavier defeats Umass

One of the best things about Drew Lavender is knowing any kind of full court pressure the opposing team tries to implement will be rendered almost completely useless. It’s such a reassuring feeling to know teams probably won’t even consider using the full court press unless things get desperate for them towards the end of the game. We as fans need to enjoy every minute he laces up for the Muskies because there aren’t many left. Drew is the one player on the team we cannot afford to lose. Sure, it would suck if anyone else went down, but I can’t see a way to come even close to duplicating what he brings to the court every night.

Our defense has been great all year, but for some reason it seemed to be on another level today. It may be called “man-to-man” but it is a true team concept. Our help defense was excellent and Stan played his usual tenacious defense we’ve come to expect from him each game this year. At times during the early part of the season we would play zone, usually towards the end of the 1^st half. I would assume this was just to mix it up a bit and give the opposing team something different to look at. We haven’t implemented this tactic in quite a while and that makes me happy. Zone is a cop out and I don’t think it helps a team’s psyche either. Beating people with tough man-to-man defense is something this team obviously takes a tremendous amount of pride in and frankly I couldn’t be happier. It may be cliché, but offense comes and goes, defense can’t.

And that’s the thing about today’s game. Even though we maintained a good lead throughout most of the game, our offense was not clicking on all cylinders, or maybe even close to it. We only hit 4 of our 22 three point attempts and shot an uncharacteristic 67.6% from the foul line making 23 of 34. We even turned the ball over just as much as Umass. That would be 16 times. So what was the difference? We out rebounded them 37-28 and played much better half court defense. We held their two leading scorers to a combined 17 points below their average. Once again, our balance carried us through in the end. Defense and rebounding are skills you have to take pride in to be great at. This team does that and I think Sean Miller should get a lot of credit for this.

A few other quick hits:

-Richmond beat Dayton by 17 last night. I don’t care who you are, that’s just funny.

-During the telecast they played quite possibly the best commercial of all time. It was played during the A-10 tournament last year and I can’t tell you how happy I was to see it again. And after a quick check on youtube, it’s actually THERE! (Seriously thank the heavens for youtube) Oh, and here’s the site too, so it is real.

-Why didn’t Travis Ford get a technical for punching the ball into the crowd? I know it was out of frustration and not directed at the officials, but with the attention being given to coach decorum this year, that should have been an obvious call.

-It kinda sucks, as a fan that we don’t have any games until Saturday, but this is a break the team probably needs. Even though we have no serious injuries, it’s always good to get a couple days off. I’m sure there are a few nagging injuries throughout the team and this little break will definitely help get rid of those. Looking at the upcoming schedule we will have four games starting Saturday the 2^nd through the 13^th of February, so to reiterate, this break should be a good thing for X.

-Conference road games are tough. Especially one against a team with an RPI of 26. So this is a great win for the Muskies.

-LaSalle is up next and we here at the MB will be attending the game. This will be only the third time since May the MB will have become one. To commemorate the occasion we will be watching a thorough beat down of some Explorers followed by a slammered good time wherever the wind takes us.

Until then, Go X!

Rivalry??? You Wish!

Yeah. I said it.

OK Dayton fans, I went all week reading countless Flyer Fan blogs. So, so many posts hating on our team, our fans, our arena (seriously…), David West, and our tournament experience last year. I could talk about how our team has played a better schedule, how our fans are awesome and how they are way off in their insults toward us, how David West still haunts their dreams, or how they didn’t even make it to the Tournament last year even though they rip on us for losing in the best game of the dance last year against the number 1 team in the nation in overtime. But no, I wont talk about how our team has played a better schedule, how our fans are awesome and how they are way off in their insults toward us, how David West still haunts their dreams, or how they didn’t even make it to the Tournament last year even though they rip on us for losing in the best game of the dance last year against the number 1 team in the nation in overtime. No, I won’t mention it once.

What I will talk about is what defines a rivalry. A rivalry, such as the U.C./X.U. rivalry, is a series of games between two teams that is always fierce, meaningful competition that could change the course of a team’s season in a single night. You know that. I know that. And hopefully now, Dayton knows that. AND, they know that what they have with us is no rivalry at all. I mean seriously, how many rivalries do you know include a team that hasn’t won at the opponent’s home court in 27 years? Um, there proly isn’t one in the country that anyone actually considers a rivalry where this is true. If anyone can prove this, I will give that one to Dayton. But seriously. Not only have we beaten them at home ever since Carter was in office, but tonight we beat the ever loving piss out of them. Rivalries are supposed to be competitive.  OK, they were missing two key players, but still. It felt like most of them forgot to get off the bus. Anyway, enough Dayton bashing. Let’s get to the actual game.

HAHAHAHA. We beat the ever-loving piss out of them! HA! Our defense was so good. I was so proud of those guys. DAN TAY JACKSON. 4 steals. He knocked the ball out of Flyer ballers’ hands more than that. Not only that, but he was hustling all up and down the floor, diving for balls and keeping our play alive. And he was 2 of 3 behind the arc. Drew Lavender didn’t have a great start, had a few turnovers in the first few minutes and forced Sean Milla to put in the freshman Dan Tay. BUT that did not turn out to be a bad thing. Mr. Tay may just have earned himself even more minutes per game this year. If anything, he showed a lot of potential of the kind of player he can become.

Dayton hit 2 3’s.

Stanley Burrell continued to play amazing defense. Who is Brian Roberts? Isn’t he supposed to be some guy who scored lots of points? I guess not. Oh, he twisted his ankle a little or was a little sick or something. Wah. If this was a rival, then why are they saying, “Let’s look toward next game against Duke Ez Knee?” Obviously, this “rivalry” isn’t that important to them. Stanley has showed us how much he matured this year all season long. His 1-on-1 defense is amazing, his scoring has gone down by about 2 points since last year, but his 3 point percentage, field goal, and free throw percentage is up, and his assists are up from 2.4 to 3.7 a game. Maturity. Stanley,you are the man, and I am glad you are a Musketeer.

Dayton put up the worst field goal percentage ever at the Cintas Center (.304). Defense.

Another word of the day: hustle. CJ Anderson had 10 boards. Many of which were pure hustle boards. Drew had 7 boards. He’s 5′7 (Yeah, right). D. Brown had possibly the hustle-play of the year, blocking some Flyer’s shot, the running down court and getting the pass for the slam dizunk. Someone had an excellent play throwing the ball of some Dayton fool’s leg while he was falling out of bounds….someone let me know who that was as I have been drinking…

So, Dayton. Better luck at the end of the year in the Field House. Because you simply have no chance in Cincinnati. This has been proven. If you win for a few decades straight there maybe we can consider you rivals. For now, I’ll call you our secondary rivals.

Let’s go X. Beat UMass.

Justin Cage Update

Just ‘cuz Justin Cage is the man. A true warrior of a man.

In early December, the Colorado 14ers (the D-League affiliate of the Nuggets, the Raptors, and the Nets) picked up Mr. Cage (smart move). Last week, I actually had the opportunity to watch Cage play, as the 14ers were showcased on the NBA Network. He played about 22 minutes, had 11 points shooting 3 of 4 from the field, 6 boards, 1 assist, a pair of blocked shots, and a nice slam dizunk. He played his usual great defense in the post and perimeter.

Watching this game made me crave some college ball or some NBA action. This is because college ball has teams that are actually coached, and NBA games, although full of selfish play and ball-hogs, are loaded with the best roundball talent in the world. Whereas most players on the court in the 14ers/66ers game were selfishly chucking the ball up from wherever they were or driving the lane despite it being full of defenders. Cage, as one might assume, was an exception to this. He must think that he’s still at XU and that winning games matters. He may have only logged in 1 assist, but he should have had at least 3 or 4 due to pathetically missed lay-ups by some other 14ers near the end of the game.

Although playing pretty well, Cage is hardly talked about in game summaries and it is unlikely you’ll find a good photo of him in their galleries. But, that’s Cage’s style. He’s an efficient hard worker, and he’s no showboat. He is shooting a solid 60% from the field since he’s been with the team, he averages just under 11 points a game, and he is logging in around 31 minutes a game. Although he started a few games when he first came in, he has been coming off the bench lately and not playing as many minutes. Those fools.

Well, hopefully some team will pick up the rights to him and throw some cash his way, as he himself is not affiliated with one of them yet. Fools I tell you.

****EDIT:

Justin played tonight after I wrote this, and oddly only played 8 minutes and scoring 2 points.  My guess for his PT going down recently is that the 14ers coach is getting some pressure to only play guys that are getting paid by NBA teams.  Not that I really blame them for it, but damn.

Random musings leading up to Thursday night

Late Thursday afternoon I’ll be making the two-hour drive up to the Cintas Center along with my dad to watch Xavier take on Dayton. I’ve been nervous about this game for a while. Ever since Dayton proved itself to be a quality team this season this game has loomed large. You see, Dayton has not won at Xavier in over 20 years. I was not even born yet for crying out loud. Therefore, I really don’t want that to end on Thursday.

One thing that worries me, maybe more so than the players because I can’t control them, is the thought of so many Dayton fans infiltrating the beautiful Cintas Center. Our seats are third row from the top and right next to the section Xavier allots to the visiting team. So of course I’ll have to deal with all the Dayton idiots. When X played Tennessee at home back on December 22^nd there were a surprising number of UT fans there and let me tell you how awesome it was to hear “Rocky Top” being sung during Sean’s post game news conference. My point is that the Dayton fans will be out in full force and they will be making some noise. It’s going to suck, but watching them sulk out of the Cintas Center after a Dayton loss would just be awesome. There would be no smack talk necessary. A simple smile would do more than suffice.

A couple other quick hits:

-Every time the ESPN talking heads of college basketball start raving about Tennessee they are inevitably followed by highlights that are almost always from the same said game when they beat us in December. It’s not really a big deal, just really annoying. Haven’t they played other games on ESPN you can show?

-Perusing the message boards over at Musketeer Madness is leaving me rather confused. The general feeling is not if we will win, but rather by how much. People are more worried about Umass it seems, which is a very important away game but one we need not worry about until Friday morning. In case you forgot we beat Dayton three times last year. They will be out for blood. This is a huge game between two top 25 teams. I know Dayton will be missing two of their key contributors, but if you think we can take this game lightly, you are sorely mistaken. Bryan Roberts will be on a mission. Luckily, I’m almost 100% confident the team does not have this attitude and you know Sean Miller could care less about Umass at the current moment.

Time to put Dayton where they really belong. The trash.

More A10 Lovin’….mmm Feels Good…

To add to the article by Joe Lunardi brought to our attention by klark from the Musketeer Madness Chatboard found here, there is a great podcast from ESPN radio in which Andy Glockner and Joe Lunardi discuss the ever popular topic of the strength of the A10 compared to all those other dumb conferences. It’s a pretty good listen for any A10 fan. The St. Joe’s color commentator uses more of that logic that he likes to use to prove that our conference is actually pretty dang good. Click here and go to the 1/18 show.

Ugh…..Dayton

Probably the worst mascot in College athletics.