There’s no way this team is going to win the Big East Tournament easily, is there? There are two possible scripts here: Xavier steps up and gets the other team back. Xavier fell, then trudged back up.
Thankfully for all of us, today they chose option one. It’s not guaranteed to win, just like option two is guaranteed to fail, but it’s at least easier to watch. All of Wright (7/1/2) are hot, but the most immediate story is Trey Carroll (18/9/4 and three blocks). Xavier’s amulet returned early. He scored Xavier’s first four points and looked healthy. Did Richard Pitino go down in a nearly meaningless game on Saturday? Probably not, but Carroll looks pretty fresh and ready to go.
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Xavier built a lead while Marquette continued to do what they had done all year and shoot terrible shots. It’s really scary. They shot .385/.250/.600 in the first half, but even that couldn’t do justice to the initial string of turnovers. Xavier, on the other hand, was unsustainably hot from the get-go. Everyone who watched Xavier play this year knew what was coming, and just like the sun rising in the east and Wes Miller losing the big game, it happened.
The Golden Eagles hit Xavier on a 15-2 run, all because they got hot and X suddenly completely forgot how to score. The Musketeers scored once on seven possessions. In fact, Xavier only scored five goals in the final ten minutes of the first half. If this is your first time playing the game or you’ve never read the rules, let me tell you, it sucks.
This being Xavier, though, they weren’t content with just letting this be the story of the game. Jovan Milicevic (21/3/2) scored 13 points on a three-pointer in the first half, but his friends helped the team in the second half. Tre Carroll scored 14 of his 18 points in the second quarter, and Filip Borovicanin (10/6/7) got his all, turning around a miserable first half and getting back to his usual self. With a little more than 11 minutes left in the game, Xavier went on a 15-2 run to push the lead to 10 points.
But no one who has watched this team play this season is satisfied. Coach Pitino has said his team has no defense since the Villanova game, and it’s refreshing to see a group of young men determined to stop their coach from lying. Xavier’s odds of winning fell to 21 percent in just two minutes, and Marquette quickly scored seven points of his own with Nigel James finally coming to life.
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X then expanded his lead and his chance of winning climbed to 86%. Go home and hose it down, right? Of course not. Six minutes later, Xavier’s chances of winning fell to 39%. Roddy Anderson (9/5/3) and Malik Messina-Moore (18/4/3) are trying, but Xavier slides back into the mud. If the Musketeers can win this game, there’s really only one guy who can do it.
If this game was every trope of the season (lead, poor defense, untimely turnovers, mediocre rebounding, no backup big man…), then there’s only one left: a Trey Carroll shot that really wasn’t necessary to go in. The shot danced around the rim before falling, but after Carroll released a shot on the other end, there was no doubt that Xavier’s star was the one who made the difference. This team is significantly better when he’s on the floor. It took him a while to get used to today’s assignment, but the smile on his face after the game was funny.
The reward for this win was UConn. Xavier was eliminated twice by the Huskies. All it takes is one win to erase those games from memory. Is it possible? No, but we don’t like that possibility. We’re here for the incredible, the miraculous, the unexplainable run. Maybe Xavier starts the day here with a little run in the lane that makes all the leads, missed rebounds and odd turnovers go away for a moment. Man, I love this sport.