Addressing the haters….

One of the weird things about being a Xavier fan is the apparent fact that we get more love from the national media than the local media.  I listened to Lance McAlister yesterday via the podcast and he could not believe how much backlash there was towards our success.  Which in and of itself is not surprising since Xavier has a decidedly small minority of fans in Cincinnati.  And I don’t expect UC fans to jump on the bandwagon, because I would never root for UC under any circumstances as well.  

It’s the rationale that drives me insane in the haters drive to belittle us.  Since we beat a 13 and a 12 seed that seems to somehow diminish our accomplishment of getting to the Sweet 16.  

I would imagine I speak for all Muskie fans when I say, “Sorry I’m not sorry.  No really, I apologize for our highly successful non-conference results and winning the conference title to EARN a 4 seed.  And I’m sorry Wisconsin didn’t bow down to Florida State after everyone and their brother picked the ‘Noles to get into the Sweet 16.  And I’m REALLY sorry we then had the audacity to beat the Badgers and reach the Sweet 16 for the second straight year.”

Ugh, why do I care so much?  

But ya know what?  This is one of the reasons I love Xavier.  There is something about having a small but very passionate and smart fan base that appeals to me in a very large way.  And X does not recruit players who want the attention.  We recruit players that want to WIN, period.  And that is more than evident from the quotes and demeanor of this and past year’s teams.  This was a quote from Derrick Brown I found off of Lance’s blog.  

“You can’t explain it to the outside world because they’re not in here, they don’t understand, People might think that it’s about stats and yadda yadda yadda, but we all care about each other and we got the job done. We’re going to the Sweet 16, baby!”

That pretty sums it up for this Xavier fan.  I doubt there are too many players around the country that think this way about their program and team.

And to all the haters I say, “Meh.”  

Tomorrow, we shall delve into the world of Pittsburgh basketball and our perception of how to pull off the upset.

Let’s go X!

Sweet… Pitt it is.

XU has advanced to their second straight Sweet Sixteen appearance for the first time ever to face off against Coach Miller’s Alma Mater Pittsburgh,  and I couldn’t be drunker happier.  The general discussion with Mr. Golfitup and I before the game was that this was going to be one of those first-to-sixty games, and this was exactly the case as XU won 60-49.

Xavier was the team to reach it first, and they did so with suffocating defense on the other end.  There was spread out scoring (signature Sean Miller coaching), big-time plays from just about everybody (except for Brad Redford’s 7-minute One Trillion), and did I mention The Muskies played with suffocating defense?  Well they did.  Wisconsin only shot 3-20 behind the 3-point arc, and only shot 28% total from the field. The biggest defensive play to me was a HUGE block by Kenny Frease all the way out to the 3-point line with about 7 minutes left.  He extended out to a guard and threw a shot back that could have tied this game, where every point was so important until X was finally able to pull away with 2 or 3 minutes to go.  But that isn’t meant to take anything away from the D the rest of the team played.  It was a thing of beauty.

Dante was a pain im the Badger Ass, Jamel’s 18 minutes included some of the biggest momentum plays of the game, Kenny had his best all-around game despite still strugling from the free throw line, and I drank Budweiser.  The thing that shocks me is that some things that I thought would be our Achilles  Heel in the tournament, especially in a back-and-forth close game like this did not spell our demise.

The Badgers shot about 13% better than us from the line with the help of some odd foul calls in the first half, and they only had 7 TO’s compared to our 14.  But it seemed as if every Wisconsin possession went down to the last 3 seconds of the shot clock before a bad shot was forced up or, you know, the occasional make.  Their epically slow style just appeared to fall right into the pack-line trap as they could hardly get anything by us,  and our Muskies had just a little more than enough offense to advance to the Sweet 16… again, bitches.

Now I get to nervously watch another huge game on Thursday, but until then, I will celebrate.  And I wonder how many times we will get to see this until and during our game against Pitt.  SEND IT IN JAMEL!!!

***also, did anyone else notice D Brown in the post-game interview say that they weren’t going to let CJ and BJ play their last games?  As in this wouldnt have been his last anyways?  I liked the way that sounded…

Muskies look to defeat secondary rivals for A-10 crown…

Before the season started I wrote what I thought should be the goals of the 2008-2009 version of the Xavier Musketeers.  Those goals were to win the A-10 regular season title and get into the NCCA tournament.  Now the latter of those two goals already appears to be in the bag.  And that’s all a fan can truly hope for in regards to entering a season in a supposed “rebuilding” year.  Although I highly doubt any of the players and coaches would agree with that sentiment.

Now in regards to the first goal of the season that means a lot is riding on tomorrow’s night game at the beautiful Cintas Center.  Dayton comes in off what many would say was a must-win game at home versus Temple, while X is coming off a hard fought road win at the Palestra against St. Joe’s.  Methinks I don’t need to remind anyone the conference title is on the line and we want that third straight A-10 title!  

Obviously, Jimmy Carter’s mug isn’t on this post just for kicks.  And I doubt  I need to remind anyone about the last time Dayton beat Xavier in Cincinnati.  Now one would have to reason that Dayton will eventually  beat X in Cincy, but it’s been so long since it happened I would think it’s just human nature for Dayton players to wonder if they’ll ever win at Xavier.  So while it may happen at some point I certainly don’t want it to happen tomorrow night or anytime soon for that matter.  Reminds me of  a very moving speech I find poignant at the moment.

Hell Oui!

Let’s go X!

We play Dayton tomorrow night so i guess i better write a post….

Pretty sure the only reason I still hate Dayton is because their fans seem to hate us with a passion that at times is incomprehensible to us X fans.  I’ve also heard too many stories by posters on the message boards saying they will never enter UD Arena again because of the way they were treated.  However, that still won’t deter me from going there. (hopefully next season)  Since I made the little sojourn over to Clifton for the first time this past December I must go to UD Arena.  

The funny thing about Dayton is that they are 21-3, come from a decent to good league and yet no one knows anything about them because they’ve been on television exactly one time this year when the Flyers barely eked out a win over St. Louis on the CBS college sports channel.  Now to their credit they have beaten Marquette, but that is also the only quality win they have as well.  And pretty much the only quality team they’ve faced until 7pm Wednesday night.

And by the way, good job promoting this game espn.  I watch a ton of college hoops, which inevitably means i watch a ton of espn, and have seen precisely zero ads promoting the game.  Of course, it does zero good for the game to be on espn classic in regards to garnering any kind of national audience, but could you at least throw us a line one time after the gazillionth Duke/UNC promo.  Oh well, whatever.

Anyways, Dayton sucks.  They’re not even our main rival.  Derrick Brown and Romain Sato (he speaks 6 languages!) left it for the greener pastures of Xavier.  They wish they were us.  And I find it funny that UD fans make fun of the Blue Blob when they trot out “Rudy the Flyer” and his idiotic look.  And you’re really going to intimidate the boys in navy with your “Beat Xaiver” shirts, which will be the 80th straight game you’ve worn those incredibly creative shirts.

Alright, I’ve said my piece.  Obviously, Dayton has enough talent to beat us tomorrow night, especially since it is on their home court, but I’ll be surprised if they can shoot it well enough to beat us.  A team like Dayton should fall right into the laps of our pack-line defense.  

Let’s go X!

X off to good A-10 start

Which is more than I can say about our not so friendly neighbors up I-75…

This Fordham win was a perfect preview for the rest of our A-10 road schedule.  X is going to get everyone’s best shot on the road.  Both the fans and players will be up for it and it is a great test mentally for the guys wearing navy blue.  That’s why it was probably a good thing to start off against the weakest link of the A-10.  Rose Hill Gym is the oldest gym in use by a D-1 basketball team.  

Naturally, that makes for an odd atmosphere.  Our guys probably weren’t used to hearing everything going on in the gym.  But when you out rebound your opponent by 23 that usually makes for an easy win.

Teams with small gyms like that can have a good home court advantage.  I watched St. Mary’s play at home against Santa Clara recently and they have a very small gym as well.  But the difference was that the place was packed and the fans are right on top of you, which can make for an intimidating atmosphere.   But when your team is 2-11 I suppose it’s tough to really get up and be excited even it the 16th ranked team in the country comes to town.

Rhody will have that aforementioned atmosphere in place Thursday night in that the students will be rocking and their place is more like the Cintas Center than a high school gym like Fordham’s.  Rhode Island should have beaten Duke early this year, but succumbed late at Cameron Indoor.  Obviously, we did not do too well against Duke but that won’t have any bearing on this game.  But we’ll worry about Rhody later this week.  Right now, let’s just be thankful for the 415,323th time we aren’t our neighbors to the north.

We are already half way done with the regular season. sigh…….   Oh well, the more games we play the sooner March (and April!) gets here so I’ll take it.

Let’s go X!

Waiting for X

It feels like its been a lifetime since I have seen the Musketeers play, and it will be one more month’s time until tipoff against the Mighty Mastodons of IPFW.  A few thoughts…

Now that Mark Lyons and (probably) Jordan Crawford won’t be joining their teammates in games this season, we have to see what we can get out of hot shooting Brad Redford and true PG Terrell Holloway.  Hopefully, their competition for time will be a good thing for the X-Men.  And let’s not forget Dante is back, and he will be bringin’ his hustle with him I’m sure.   Regardless who is starting, we all know that Coach will find out how to use them effectively.  After all, Josh Duncan (as good as he was) came off the bench much of last year and was still very effective.  I mean we had like 13 guys averaging double digits.  I think even Kevin Waymire had 8.5 PPG last year…

Will our expectations be too high this year?  Our pals over at Storming the Floor seem to think they might be, picking us along with the Notre Dame Drinking Irish to dissappoint their loyal followers.  Their argument makes sense, pointing out our losses of Stan the Man, Drew Lav, and big Josh Duncan.  And although I agree with them that our guards are going to be a big part of our team’s success, we also need to bank on the experience of Jason Love and the beastly raw talent of Freshman Kenny Frease down low.  They also go on to talk about how good everyone else on our team was last season…

There is so much to look forward to after such a great ‘07-’08 season.  We have another tough schedule with a possible matchup with Memphis in San Juan and a revenge game against Duke, the Yankees of college basketball, where their stupid dumb blue blood will spill.  We have a brand new floor at the Center and a 20 ft. D’artagnan.  We got a bunch of nationally televised games, including both wins against Dayton. 

I’m very aroused. 

***Extra credit points to whoever tells me which jersey the team shop is selling and if it will be any better than the cheap-ass ones they sold last year.***

New Cintas Center Floor

old                                                                                                                              new

 

 

I like it.  However, I would have preferred the new wood finish with the blue keys and the out-of-bounds outline.  It kinda looks unfinished or something.  Either way, it is still the best court in the NCAA, and I have to make a new beer pong table.

Our Elite Eight run, with help from Youtube

Coming into the start of the 07-08 season I didn’t think we were going to be as a good as the 06-07 team. That is what made this season even more special for me. I mean 30 wins! That’s just phenomenal. So here is a youtube montage of the past season.

I was amped up to play Indiana early in the year. I’m from Indiana so I know all about how delusional IU fans are. So beating them was especially gratifying for me. This game produced the highlight of the year in my opinion with Derrick Brown dunking over some lame Hoosier. It was also the first time we saw that this team could be on the brink of something special this season in beating IU convincingly.

I wore the exact same clothing ensemble to every Xavier game I attended this season except for one. And of course we lost that game to Tennessee. Our only loss at home or while wearing our white jerseys all year. Also, this happened at said game versus Tennessee.

Thanks for coming out Hoos.

Another funk-a-dunk from Derrick Brown. And to think I was worried Dayton would beat us at the beautiful Cintas Center this year.

I don’t think I could have been looking more forward to the Tournament this year. We got kind of an unlucky draw with Georgia, but it made no matter in the end.

I made a slight seat upgrade to 15 rows behind the basket for this game. It was awesome high-fiving the entire team as they ran off the court. Sweet 16 here we come!

ONIONS!!!!

I really thought we had a great shot at beating UCLA. As mentioned in the post below, this will be UCLA’s 18th final four and this was our 18th tournament appearance ever. They don’t hang final four banners. I would imagine we will have a small ceremony to commemorate our elite eight success. That is somewhat disconcerting to say the least. But I have chosen my path. And that is the path of Xavier.

It was still a great season. I am incredibly grateful for what this team gave me this year. Hell, they inspired us to start blogging about them for crying out loud! Plus, this is undoubtedly Xavier’s best team ever.

To take us home, I’ll end this with a somewhat corny, yet very somber video added to youtube just two days ago.

So until next season…..

Let’s go X!

Dayton It Is

Let’s go to work boys.

As I said in the previous post, I was a bit apprehensive about playing Dayton a third time. And then Stan happened yesterday. I still haven’t gotten over it to be honest. It was/is so awesomely awesome. The thing is, I didn’t realize the conference awards were coming out Monday. Therefore, this whole bit came outta left field for me.

We already knew Stan was pretty much hated by the rest of the A-10 (especially the fans). Now, he’s just gone and made it official.

Dayton barely beat St. Louis today. The margin of victory doesn’t mean much to me, as it was probably hard for the Flyers to not look ahead to us for Thursday’s noon tip-off. They have to be uber-motivated to get one more crack at us. I can’t imagine Brian Roberts and the rest of the Flyer seniors would take too kindly at the prospect of losing six straight games to Xavier to close out their careers. That’s why I don’t think Stan’s comments will have much of an impact on motivation for the game. If closing out your career with six straight losses to your biggest rival isn’t reason enough to bring you’re A game, then I don’t know what is. Plus, there’s that whole NCAA tournament bid thing going on too.

I’ve started listening to ESPN’s College Basketball Insider pod cast the past couple months and it’s almost always a good listen. Andy Glockner does a good job delving into the world of college basketball and chatting with the talking heads of ESPN. Towards the end of today’s (3/12) pod cast he addresses Stan’s comments. It’s during his final segment called the “Final Shot.” He “loves” Stan and thinks he makes great points about Xavier not having anyone on the A-10 first team. But the whole pod cast is worth listening to as he also addresses the A-10 Tournament.

The boys over at Flyers Fieldhouse asked me a few questions and I obliged. So take a gander at what’s being said over there. Also, they say it looks very unlikely Chris Wright will play tomorrow. It would have been interesting to see if he could change the fortune of the Flyers. Unquestionably, they were a much better/different team when he was in their lineup during the non-conference part of the season. That being said, can’t say I’m too sympathetic.

It seriously sucks I’ll be at work during the game and have literally no way of keeping track of the game. Oh well, as long as we win I’ll be a happy camper.

Go X!

I Love Stanley Burrell

I love Stanley Burrell. My man crush on him does not quite reach the same limits as one of my good friends man crush on him does, but it is in full force nonetheless. If you read this blog with any regularity, then you probably peruse the Xavier message boards as well and have read or heard Stan’s comments about the regular season awards that were just announced today. These are my favorite exerts. (Taken from Dow’s blog)

“I’ve never been so upset. You’d think after getting the awards I got, I’d be happy right now. I’m really upset about how things turned out. I called this after the Dayton game, and no disrespect to Brian Roberts, but I said things like this are going to happen; we’re going to be left out. I’ve got champions in that locker room. B.J., C.J., Derrick. Those guys shouldn’t have been left out like that. No way. Those guys are champs. Where would we be without them? I’m so upset.”

And….

“I’m sick of people overlooking us. I’m sick of us being labeled as a mid-major; we don’t get no respect, man.“

And….

“You talk about not having motivation? We got plenty now. I’m really looking forward to Atlantic City now.”

I mean, I’m just speechless. I’m not even mad, I’m amazed. I was a bit apprehensive about playing Dayton a third time. But you know what? Screw it. Bring em on. We’ve been down this road before. Remember? It was last year. I didn’t wanna play Dayton a third time then, but now, let’s throw caution to the proverbial wind. Stan may have given them (and the entire conference) some bulletin board material but who gives a damn. We’ve already been getting everyone’s best shot and with the added incentive of an automatic NCAA tournament bid what other motivation do the other A-10 teams need?

Stan is the Man

All of a sudden, I couldn’t be looking more forward to the A-10 tournament. Obviously, Drew’s ankle is still a major concern, but my optimism about the postseason has definitely gone up a few notches all because of Stan.

Oh by the way….Sean is your A-10 Coach of the Year. Stan is you’re A-10 Defensive Player of the Year and third team all-conference. Josh is your 6^th Man of the Year and 2^nd team all-conference. Seriously, what a year this has been. Congratulations guys! You deserve every accolade that comes your way.

Sean shouldn’t be surprised at winning A-10 Coach of the Year.

I am listening to Sean’s radio show right now and he says Drew showed that quickness he relies so heavily upon during practice earlier in the day. Said that is a huge confidence boost for Drew. Also, with Drew sitting out during Saturday’s game, Sean said he gained a different perspective and that should only fuel his fire to play the rest of the season. It was nice to see us get back to establishing ourselves at the line. We had shot a combined 23-42 from the foul line against GW and St. Joes. Saturday night, the fellas shot 36-43. This has been a cornerstone of our success this year and it was great to see the free throws stroking once more.

It was also nice to see Adrion play for an extended amount of time with Drew sitting on the bench. Call it a hunch, but if we are to have an extended stay in the NCAA Tournament I think Adrion will have to hit a couple big threes for us because he obviously isn’t going to be a major part of the opposing team’s scouting report.

A big shout out and congratulations are in order for Brad Redford who was named Mr. Basketball for the state of Michigan. He has averaged 37.2 points this season and has Frankenmuth in the Class B state quarterfinals. In case you need to be reminded of his lights out shooting, here ya go.

 

I’d also be very remiss if I didn’t mention the Lady Muskies winning their second straight A-10 tournament title. I caught most of the second half and it’s hard not to be impressed with this group. The great thing about this team is that there are NO seniors and only two juniors. Amber Harris and Ta’Shia Phillips are blue chippers who provide the base for the success of the Lady Muskies. You know the men’s and women’s sides have to have friendly wagers on who does better during the course of the season. I’m sure the women will make sure to tell the guys they expect them to win the A-10 tournament and make it a clean sweep for Xavier.

Overall, a great day to be an X fan.

Be back Tuesday or Wednesday with the prospect of playing Dayton or St. Louis being the primary subject.