Oh, how I've longed to see you...

Rejoice Xavier round ball fans!  The wait is officially almost over.  For the 09-10 season begins tomorrow night in the beautiful Cintas Center when the Youngstown State Penguins come to town.

To say the least, the off-season was more than a little eventful.  From Sean Miller leaving to Jordan Crawford gaining national prominence with his pseudo dunk over Lebron, we Muskie fans had to endure much more than we were ready to take on after the more than disappointing loss to Pittsburgh in the Sweet 16.

And even though it sucks to be left in the lurch by a coach I loved for the freaking desert of Arizona we press on for a new season of Musketeer basketball filled with renewed hope.  Having not yet started the season, it’s hard to imagine a more seamless transition from one coach to another.  Especially with all the turmoil that ensued with Sean’s departure.  As we all know, Mack played his final two seasons at Xavier and even though it was ravaged by injuries he was still named a team captain, which clearly means he is a good leader and obviously that is a prerequisite for being a successful coach at any level.

So what should us fans hope for with this much anticipated season?  With BJ, CJ, and Derrick leaving due to graduation and the NBA and Miller leaving to Arizona it is hard to know what we can anticipate.  It’s also hard to forget that in Sean Miller’s first season as Xavier coach our Muskies went 17-12 without a post season appearance.

But as we all know, the talent level this year’s team features is much better for Chris Mack’s first year at the helm.  Still, we must proceed with caution.  Personally, I would describe my outlook on the new season as cautiously optimistic.  In fact, I liken this year’s expectations to last year’s.

In last year’s preseason outlook I wrote, “I believe the goals this year should be to win the A-10 regular season title and get into the NCAA tournament. Anything after that is gravy.”  I would argue this year’s team should have the same goal.  Granted, long-term the goal is to get to the Final Four.

As almost all of you reading are sure to know, Dayton has received all of the pre season hype and have been picked to win the A-10.  Now don’t get me wrong, they have a good team that will probably make the tournament, but their non-conference schedule is basically crap with a couple exceptions.  Our non-conference schedule is brutal and will do more than prepare us for an A-1o schedule that will have, as per usual, everyone gunning for us.  But how will Dayton respond to having the target on their back this season?  We will find out.

But let’s worry about Dayton when we have to.  I am much more interested in how Coach Mack plans to utilize the plethora of back court talent at his disposal this year.  Our options at point guard were very limited last year and that forced Miller into using a slow it down offense that only looked to run when the opportunity presented itself.  This year, I plan on seeing us push the issue after every defensive rebound.

Clearly, our main weakness will be lack of front court depth.  With Kenny, Jamel and Jason we have three very good players.  I am hopeful Jeff Robinson will improve over the course of the season, but early on I think it’s fair to not expect too much out of him.  This probably means a lot of three guard lineups coming this season, which should make for some exciting basketball for us Muskie fans to look forward too.

Words probably can’t do justice  just how much I as a fan want a fourth consecutive A-10 title.  I’ve written it before, but conference regular season success is the key to success in March which in turn helps us to get these great non-conference schedules we fans now expect.  Also, do you think we’d sign the type of recruiting class yesterday if it were not for winning the A-10 title 5 out of the past 8 seasons?  Granted, March success has done wonders as well, but you can’t make it into the tournament without conference success coming first.

Alright, enough speculation.  I am more than looking forward to the 2 hour drive tomorrow from my driveway to the Cintas Center parking lot.

Let’s go X!

Courtesy cincinnati.com

Got a chance to check out Musketeer Madness this past Saturday with two of my chums.  Was definitely a good time, though ya can’t really garner much from a team scrimmage.

The best part of the Madness is not so much the event itself but the anticipation it produces for the damn season to finally almost be underway.  After not being in the beautiful Cintas Center for so long it feels like reconnecting with an old friend.

The highlights of the event for me were Brad Redford making 20 threes in one minute and learning a member of the women’s team has the name Special Jennings.  The dunk contest thankfully didn’t last too long, but did show the great hops of one Mark Lyons.  Was nice to see Aaron Williams there as one of the judges as well.

As most of you no doubt know, we now have banners hanging from the rafters that acknowledge past accomplishments instead of them hanging on the wall above the student section.   Said wall is now painted blue.  Although I am hoping that is not the finished product.  I love the blue, but the wall looks barren without the banners.  Hopefully a couple X’s will find their way over to the wall.  My vote would be for a large running man logo.  But that’s just me.

I was a bit surprised Chris Mack didn’t give a short speech to address the fans.  (The lower bowl was about full to capacity, so I’m assuming that would be about 5,000 fans in attendance)   Although I must say it is a nice contrast to Kentucky’s midnight madness where John Calipari looked like a dictator addressing his masses.  Then again, I’m always ready to hate on UK.

All in all though, I would rate the event a success.  It fueled my appetite for Xavier basketball that much more and I reckon that’s the goal of Musketeer Madness to begin with.  Put on a good show and get the fans amped for the upcoming season.

Wow.  This is just sad.  I’m not sure if this is worth the pay raise, Sean.

Marvin Fong/The Plain Dealer

Xavier officially released the non-conference portion of the schedule today and boy will this be an exciting season for our Muskies.  Marquette (1st round of Old Spice Classic), Kansas State, Butler, Cincinnati, Florida, LSU, Wake Forest and either Creighton or Michigan (per the 2nd round of the Old Spice Classic) round out the best match-ups for us fans to look forward to.

This non-conference schedule has to be one of the toughest in the country.  Clearly, there is a bit of unknown with first year head coach Chris Mack.  And much like last year surely there will be at least a couple setbacks.  So it will be interesting to see how Mack and the players react to those potential situations.  But I must admit I am not terribly worried about this.  And besides, today is not the day for that type of speculation.

Now that we have actual teams and dates to look forward to we, or maybe just me, can finally start to look forward to the upcoming season a scant three months away.  What with $ean Miller leaving and having to endure the ensuing coaching change and the bizarre tale of Jordan Crawford’s dunk (Thanks for the free pub Lebron!) this off-season has definitely been memorable.  Some good like the commitments of  Darwin Davis and Jay Canty and one big bad with Miller going to Arizona.  But in the end, if he didn’t wanna stay, then good riddance.

It’s hard not to feel anything but optimism with the direction this program continues to take.  The year in and year out ambition of our non-conference schedules continues to prove to the country that Xavier will not mess around and we are to be taken seriously as a true national player in college basketball.

All hail Mike Bobinski and let’s go X!

First things first.  Congratulations to Derrick Brown for being the 40th overall draft pick and going to the Charlotte Bobcats last night.  Being that the Bobcats are consistently bad, this could be a great chance for DBrown to stand out and showcase his talent by winning some serious playing time next year.  I’m hoping this turns out to be the case.  Also, shame on my Cleveland Cavaliers for not picking him up with the 30th pick.  I know they just wanted to waste a pick with a foreign guy they didn’t want to pay, but still.  Shame.

In more controversial news…

Musketeer fan favorite and former guest of the Musketeer Blogosphere Stanley Burrell has been drawing some attention recently via his Twitter page.  Now I’m not a Twitter guy (even though Golfitup has decided to register us on the network) and I know many of you aren’t, but if you are a Muskie fan and you haven’t done so yet, go to Stanley Burrell’s Twitter page and read his recent commentary on D Brown and their former Coach Sean ‘Take the Money and Run’ Miller. 

From what I gather, I guess Burrellwas a little upset with fans leaving negative comments about Derrick and his decision to leave X with one more year of collegiate eligibility left to enter the NBA draft. 

He tweets, “if i recieveone more negative msg about D Brown, i will find a way to block that person. D is chasing a dream! Hes from xu- Support him!!!”

I couldn’t agree with SB more here.  Remember Muskie fans, Derrick was redshirted his freshman year.  He went to Xavier for four years of college, graduated, and put himself in a position to make a good living playing in the most competitive basketball league in the world.  Then Stanley began thinking of the situation that most likely guaranteed an early exit from X…

“Lets face it… SM isnt trying to develop pros. It was all about him! Look ive spoke to SM ONE time since grad. from X. Family huh? NOT! … SM taught me many things that im thankful for. Most recently, this world is cut throat! GET YOURS WHILE U CAN! Wow!”

and my favorite…

“The fact that ive talked to a coach ONE TIME since grad. that i gave my blood, sweat, and tears for(for 4 yrs) is BULLSHIT! I sacrificed (just like the rest of my teammates) for Sean and our team…He made me believe that we were really like family to eachother. when really that was just a scheme to get us all to buy in to the “team system”. He proved me right when i realized we only spoke once for about 15 secs when i attended the temple vs xu home game.”

I love Stanley Burrell.  I didn’t think I could like him any more, but he proved me totally wrong.  I love him like Michael Jackson loved Tiny Toons (too soon?). 

Stanley Burrell has shown us that in a sports world where the media has gone completely batshit insane and the dollar now proves to be the ultimate prize, there is still some sense of loyalty, passion, and TEAM somewhere.  And that somewhere is in the heart of Burrell himself. 

Stan was obviously hurt by Miller.  Not because he packed his bags and headed out west for a new tax bracket, but for feeding him the same bull s. that every coach feeds every high school kid and their parents in their living rooms.  That they will become a father figure to the player and that the team will become his family away from family.  Well, Stan did the same thing all of us Musketeer fans did when we heard the Arizona Wildcats head coach say that our school was second to none and that he believed he could win a national championship at Xavier.  He believed him.

Way to teach those life lessons Coach D Bag.  Way to teach these kids that in life, no one really cares about you;  they are just using you as stepping stones to further their own personal gains and fortunes without any regard to those they turn their backs on.  The best thing for you to do is to tell people what they need to hear to help you reach your goals then cut ties with them if they are no longer needed.  The more you know…

I’ve heard X fans talk about Miller’s admirable family values and his devotion up until the very second he left us in the Midwest.  They must have been talking about Stanley Burrell, because he is a man that actually has the values Mr. Miller pretends to have. 

If you think Stanley is wrong, that Miller was just doing his job, then you don’t share the belief system of Xavier University.  That we are a family, whether you’re on the basketball team or just living at 3756 Ledgewood.  And you are not welcome at my parties, bitch. 

Let me justify.  I really enjoy the facebook, so I feel as though it would be rather hypocritical for me to turn my nose up at Twitter.  Now I’ve gone and done this without telling my partner in crime Ledgewood because he is very anti-twitter.  But screw him!  However, I just figure this could be a fun way to leave some (hopefully) witty anecdotes that aren’t worth making full posts about on the blog.  So feel free to follow us over at Twitter.  The website is twitter.com/muskieblog. 

Let’s go X!

A man happy to be our coach.

Any true Xavier fan trusts Mike Bobinski with everything they have.  I think some students need to get on the ball here and make some shirts that read, “In Bobo I trust.”  I know I’d buy one.

From the word go hiring Chris Mack seemed like the logical decision.  The players are behind him, he’s a Cincy guy, and a Xavier grad/man.  And as he mentioned in the press conference today, people thought he was nuts to leave Wake Forest when they were the number 1 team to start the season with Chris Paul.  He left because he wanted to coach in his hometown and his university.   

I find it interesting that almost nothing was found out about other coaching candidates during the search process.  Darrin Horn came out twice and denied being linked to job.  Other than the known interview with Mack nothing else was known about the search.  Bobo made it clear there was a great list of potential candidates who were very interested in the vacancy.  This is why Mike Bobinski is one of the best athletic directors in the country.  

Speaking of Bobo…

Go get some sleep buddy.  Guy’s probably been averaging about 4 hours a night the past month at least.  From being on the selection committee and all the stress that process can incur to traveling to different tournament sites to having to rush back to Cincinnati in order to suddenly try to keep a coach he thought would never leave to then having to undergo a week and a half long coaching search to keep the Xavier machine chugging along.  That’s a tough month to get through.  Do yourself a favor and take a nice vacation, Bobo, because you’ve earned it.  

Filling out the coaching staff, keeping Kevin Parrom on board and Derrick’s decision to turn pro or return for his senior season are the next big things on the horizon for this unexpected tumultuous off-season.

It’ll be awesome to have Brian Thornton on the staff next year in the position of Director of Basketball Operations.  

Some optimism has been preserved for this kid and that’s all I can ask/hope for at this point…

Let’s go X!

Today at around noon, Sean Miller returned to the Cintas Center and took the dry erase board from the practice court.  The dry erase board included two felt black erasers and rolled nicely on its four-wheeled legs. 

After being with the team for 7 seasons, the dry erase board will now be assisting the Arizona Wildcats in drawing up both offensive and defensive plays including the pick-and-roll, the 3-2 zone, and perhaps even the alley-oop screen.  Coach Miller has denied all rumors that he will actually learn and use any inbound plays with Arizona. 

“It’s going to be sad to see it go,” said Xavier Junior Derrick Brown.  “I didn’t want to believe that it was gone at first, but then I saw Coach Miller loading it into one of his new SUV’s today and it really hit home.” 

As of 3:00 PM eastern, there has been no word from Xavier Athletic Director Mike Bobinski if there were any sweet deals on Amazon.com lately or if the search for a new dry erase board has even begun.

My sources allegedly tell me that its speculation that possibly a new suit will be named coach within the next two days!

Woohoo.