Xavier outlasts Georgetown in a sloppy, disjointed game

Gritty, not pretty.

I know that was Zach Freemantle’s thing last year, but that was the only way Xavier was going to win this game. Just three days after being on the receiving end of the program’s worst beating in Cintas Center history, the Muskies bounced back at Georgetown to keep the season something close to alive.

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The check engine light started flashing before the first media timeout, when Tre Carroll (22/8/4) was called for his second foul. The officiating was a subject of much consternation on Twitter. Like most things on social media, it was overblown, but there was certainly an element of truth to the argument that the Muskies were on the receiving end of a home whistle. Xavier was +2 with Carroll on the floor in the first half and -7 without him.

The guy keeping the whole show afloat was Malik Messina-Moore (14/1/1), who had 12 of his 14 before the half. He dropped 6 points in the last 5 minutes of the half to keep the Muskies within touching distance after they had gone down by 10 and seemed to be on their way to another humiliating conference loss. Thanks to a modest 13-8 close to the half, X went into the locker room down just 5.

Xavier kept battling back, but it looked like Malik Mack (21/2/3) was once again going carry his team to victory against the Muskies. A year after ripping off 26/2/3 in this fixture, he had an answer for everything Xavier did early in the second half. The visitors had an incandescent 17-point first war, but Mack had 7 of his own to keep the game tied at the U16. When he stuck back-to-back bombs out of the break – answered only by a Roddie Anderson III (14/6/4) fadeaway – Georgetown stretched the lead back to 5 and it was gut check time for our boys.

It started slowly, in the form of a pair of made FTs from Pape N’Diaye (6/4/0), whose stat line belies how steadying his influence felt when he was on the floor. Tre Carroll, who Georgetown had no answer for when he wasn’t benched due to foul trouble, knocked in a…

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Publish date : 2025-12-21 04:30:00

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