Scouting report: How Xavier Musketeers can get 1st win of 2025 over DePaul Blue Demons

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There’s no way to sugar coat Xavier’s season thus far.

After record-breaking performances at Cintas Center this season, Xavier set dubious marks at its home venue Tuesday in an 82-72 loss to St. John’s.

Xavier head coach Sean Miller called the defeat the “low point” of the Musketeers’ season. Xavier gave up 20 offensive rebounds for the first time in 12 years and it was the program’s first double-digit loss at Cintas Center under Miller since 2006.

February and March have long been the most important months of a college basketball season. But for those games to even matter, Xavier must start winning in January.

Sean Miller called Tuesday’s loss to St. John’s the “low point” of Xavier’s season. The Musketeers have lost seven of their last 10 games and are 1-4 in Big East play.

Last season, a batch of inexperienced players and multiple season-long injuries led to Xavier’s first losing season in nearly three decades.

Having lost seven of its last 10 games, Xavier has just a 9.9% chance of making the NCAA Tournament, according to TeamRankings.com, and are certainly flirting with back-to-back losing seasons for the first time since 1982.

Is there good news? Yes.

Fans don’t want to hear about what could have been. Plenty of them did a lot of that this fall with the Bengals. However, Xavier’s five losses by six points or less, is a sign this team is not far off from turning this thing around, if they can find a way to win in crunch time.

The other fact is that Xavier’s played just 25% of its Big East regular season games. There’s still time to right the ship, but the margin for error couldn’t be smaller. A longshot is still a shot, nonetheless.

Xavier sophomore Dailyn Swain (3) is averaging 12.7 points and 6.7 rebounds over the last four games.

Handle DePaul and go from there

The typical “Coach Speak” would likely say to treat things one game at a time. That’s Xavier’s only option right now in the midst of a 1-4 start in league play.

Of course, any shred of optimism and hope left for Xavier…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/scouting-report-xavier-musketeers-1st-051542945.html

Author : Cincinnati.com | The Enquirer

Publish date : 2025-01-10 05:15:00

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