SWEET 16

AWWWWW yeah. That’s right Muskie fans. Sean Miller and the 12 Musketeers are a part of the last 16 teams in the 2008 NCAA Tournament. YEAH.

I’m so proud to be a Musketeer fan.

They played so well. I can’t believe we were out-rebounded (35-33), because it looked like our beloved team hustled so hard, and it showed. WORKING the ball inside, getting and1’s, hitting 3’s we needed to hit (Drew with that nasty 3 pointer to end the half kept us up 3 rather than tied going into the locker room). YES.

They forced more turnovers than we did (14 to the 10 we forced), they out-rebounded us (35-33), 12 offensive to our 4, and they had more steals (8-3). But it didn’t matter a whole lot.

I love these pictures.

Our boys simply out-played the Boilermakers. They wanted it more. Cheesy line about winning. They played today like they played the second half against Georgia. With heart, purpose, like it was their last game if they lost.

It looked like Duncan may have been in foul trouble with his 4th foul in the second half with 6 or so minutes left, but the Sean Miller Substitution Theory just kept working, and we rolled on to win.

I love these pictures.

This game was the perfect example of what this year’s XU team is all about. There were some great quotes from the ESPN recap that I like:

“If Purdue could have picked one or two players from Xavier to focus upon, then surely the Boilermakers would have had an easier time fulfilling their reputation as one of the best defensive teams in the Big Ten.” Pssh. More like the Little Ten.

“Purdue, however, discovered what many Atlantic 10 teams already know: The X-men are simply too balanced. Even if you find a way to stop a couple of them, two or three others are more than capable of taking over the offensive load.”

“The Musketeers were 26-for-33 at the line and 27-for-50 from the floor against a team that led the Big Ten in field goal percentage defense. The 85 points scored by Xavier were the most allowed by Purdue this season.”

“‘At times,’ Boilermakers coach Matt Painter said, ‘we just could not stop them.’”

“Xavier was efficient on defense, too. Although the Boilermakers scored 25 points in the final 8 1/2 minutes, they shot only 39 percent and were 8-for-21 from 3-point range. This, after the Boilermakers scored a season-high 90 points in their first-round game against Baylor.”

“‘Their defense is legit. Definitely legit,’ said Purdue’s Keaton Grant, who scored 19. ‘They’re not one of those helter-skelter [teams], where it’s false defense and it’s going to break down in the last five minutes’” Nice to get that respect from Grant. Guard Chris Kramer added some respect when talking about how we responded to the 9-0 run Purdue started the game with: “We came out and punched them in the mouth first and they came back and punched us. They’re so balanced, they’re hard to defend.”

“Lavender went 8-for-8 at the line in the final minute.” Free throw shooting has been a BIG part of a bunch of our close wins this year. It was even bigger tonight, keeping us ahead of the Boilermakers in this game (26-33 tonight, good enough for me) .

 

CJ. I love you.

Sean, I love you.

Seriously though. Tonight, our Xavier musketeers showed the Nation just what we are all about. It all worked perfectly. We shot well (54%). We played our tough defense, as Purdue shot just 38.8%. We responded very well to a 9-0 run the boilermakers started the game with with our own 17-3 run. Multiple players showed up. Duncan, Brown, Lavender, Anderson, Burrell, BJ… I love these guys.

XU is 2-0 against Big10 teams this year, both teams we beat were in the top 20 in both polls at the time.

Tonight’s results set up an interesting Sweet 16 game in the West as our Musketeers will face the Evil Bob Huggins’s Mountaineers. I swear, there’s always a compelling story with our NCAA Tournament experiences. This was going to be the first time in 18 years that Huggie Bear did not play Xavier, but he can’t avoid us just yet after upsetting the over-rated No. 2 seeded Duke Blue Devils in the Second Round. Duke is lucky they didn’t win that game. Since they didn’t, instead of revenge as a motive, we have the opportunity to beat Huggins again and advance to the Elite 8 for the second time ever.

There is nothing prolific about this post. I know. I don’t care. I’m just so happy. This is the greatest time of the year. Go X! Beat those stupid Mountain People. Fuck John Denver. Mountain Momma. Take me home. Country Roads.