My calendar tells me it’s a little early in the season to break out “once more unto the breach, dear friends,” but, with eight months separating us from the last time Xavier looked good on a basketball
court, my heart tells me we’re there. Having won buy games against two teams with an aggregate ranking of #489 in the KenPom by an aggregate total of 9 points, Xavier turned around and lost by 19 points each against the only two good teams they’ve played. Whatever’s past the point of saying it’s getting late early, I think we’re there. The ostensible slump buster is Old Dominion, a team that’s also sitting at 2-2. They’ve bracketed home wins against non-league Randolph and Norfolk State with uncompetitive losses against Miami (OH) and George Washington. Like Xavier, they’re not in any sense set up to compete for an at-large bid. Unlike Xavier, they’re not expected to. It was always going to be a long road for this iteration of Xavier’s team. Maybe bright spots will be hard to come by for a bit, but if the Muskies can grab a home win over any opponent, we should enjoy the result for what it is.
Team Fingerprint
This is not a good offense, though I think the fairest place to start is that they’re a better shooting team than Xavier. With an EFG% of 49.1%, they’re more than four whole points higher than the Muskies. They shoot 48.5% from inside the arc, which is bad, and 33.3% from deep, which is about average. They don’t get to the line much, and they’re not very good at rebounding, either. Crucially, the Monarchs have been plagued by turnovers, sitting 307th in the nation with a 21.2% TO rate.
That offense is 205th in the country in AdjO; the ODU defense is 255th in adjusted defense. Their party piece is a 27% three-point shooting defense, which I don’t have to tell you is excellent. Other than that, it’s grim reading. Teams shoot 56% from inside the arc against Old Dominion and grab 34% of their own misses. They also almost never force turnovers, ranking below 300th in the country with a 14.4% defensive TO rate. They also send their opponents to the line an almost egregious amount.
Players
Starters
| Starting matchups | ||
|---|---|---|
| LJ Thomas | Point Guard | All Wright |
| Senior | Class | Sophomore |
| 6’2″, 205 | Measurements | 6’3″, 190 |
| 14.3/4.5/4.3 | Game line | 6.8/1.5/1.5 |
| 60.6/42.9/70 | Shooting line | 41.7/42.9/50 |
| Thomas has bounced from a couple of years at NC State through Austin Peay to his current station at ODU. He’s an excellent ball distributor who has always been very secure with it, but he has had some turnover issues early this season. He’s more of a slasher than a jump shooter, but he has been solid from behind the arc in low volume for most of his career. | ||
| Jordan Battle | Shooting Guard | Malik Messina-Moore |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| 6’2″, 190 | Measurements | 6’5″, 200 |
| 9/5.5/3 | Game line | 10.5/1/3.3 |
| 30/23.5/82.4 | Shooting line | 38.7/41.2/68.8 |
| Another guard on his third school, Battle has struggled to score it with any efficiency this year. He shot 43% from deep last year on good volume, but this year he’s 2-10 from deep against D1 teams. He has been a solid rebounder for a guard, but if that’s the silver lining you’re appealing to as a guard, things aren’t going well. Change can be tough, but Battle needs to find his feet here at some point in time. | ||
| KC Shaw | Small Forward | Tre Carroll |
| Senior | Class | Senior |
| 6’4″, 195 | Measurements | 6’8″, 235 |
| 15.8/3/1.3 | Game line | 13.5/3/2.5 |
| 48.9/0/68 | Shooting line | 33.3/25/72.4 |
| Shaw started with a couple years in the JuCo ranks before spending last year at Maryland Eastern Shore as a volume scorer. He’s filling the same role at Old Dominion, relentlessly attacking off the bounce to get to the rim or pull up in the mid-range. He’s not a deep threat at all. He can get to the line at a solid clip, but he’s a career 66% shooter from the stripe. | ||
| Scottie Hubbard | Power Forward | Jovan Milicevic |
| Sophomore | Class | Sophomore |
| 6’6″, 210 | Measurements | 6’8″, 220 |
| 6.8/3.5/0.3 | Game line | 9/3.3/1 |
| 37.5/38.9/100 | Shooting line | 32.1/31.3/76.5 |
| A returning guy! Hubbard is no great shakes on either end of the court, but he’s an excellent three-point shooter with a career 39.5% mark. He doesn’t rebound or distribute in any meaningful volume, but he is a statistically solid defender. It should be noted that his defensive efforts are undermined by 5.4 fouls every 40 minutes. | ||
| Caelum Swanton-Rodger | Center | Anthony Robinson |
| Senior | Class | Sophomore |
| 7’0″, 240 | Measurements | 6’10”, 252 |
| 6/5.5/1 | Game line | 3.3/3.3/0.8 |
| 64.7/0/66.7 | Shooting line | 42.9/0/46.7 |
| In awe at the size of this lad. He started with two years at Maryland as a classic high-upside project big man that didn’t develop enough to force his way onto the floor. He has been an excellent rebounder and rim protector at ODU, but he had a ton of troubles with fouls last year and is committing 6.7 per 40 minutes on the young season. He’s got a little touch around the rim, no range to speak of, and the free throw shooting of Shaq. |
Reserves
Jared Turner is a 6’8″, 215-pound stretch four who is the first big man off the bench. He averages 5.3/3.3/1.0 on .368/.429/1.000 shooting, dragging down his efficiency with a 1-5 mark from inside the arc. He’s a three-and-D guy who has to do work outside of his skill set if he’s playing instead of Swanton-Rodgers instead of alongside him. At 6’7″, 220, Drew McKenna has about the same build as Turner, but he’s more of a paint worker. He averages 4.5/2.0/0.3 per game and is 1-20 from behind the arc in 23 career games. Guard depth comes from Robert Davis, Jr. and Zacch Wiggins. Davis is a volume scorer who averages 5.3/1.7/1.3 per game on a brutal 41.2% EFG%. He has been an unrepentant chucker with limited peripheral contributions for his entire career. Wiggins is a freshman off to hot shooting start, putting up a .467/.375/.667 and averaging 4.8 PPG.
Three Questions
- –How does Xavier respond? The Muskies got run out of their own home against Santa Clara and then thoroughly whipped by Iowa. There were some bright spots on Friday, but giving up a 34-17 run that started just after the under-4 in the first half and ended with 10 minutes to play in the game wiped those out. That turned a deficit of 5 to one of 22 and ended the game everywhere except the clock. This is shaping up to be a lost season, but X can show that they’re not all at sea already if they can come out and put something together tonight.
- –What is going on with Malik Messina-Moore? He averaged 16.5 PPG in Xavier’s first two games and 4.5 PPG in their next two. A cynic might say that’s what happens when a player jumps from Pepperdine and Montana to the Big East, but it looked like something more or at least different than that. He was listless and uninvolved against Santa Clara and took himself out of the Iowa game with foul trouble. X needs to figure out if he’s going to be a guy they can play through or a tertiary piece this year.
- –How long can Anthony Robinson be trusted? He was off to a solid if unspectacular start in the first three games, but he was functionally absent at Iowa. His offensive efficiency has been undermined by an EFG% of 42.9% and serious turnover issues. He has been a good defensive piece in the middle of the floor, but he has to be able to contribute on offense because Xavier isn’t nearly good enough at that end to carry a passenger.
Three Keys
- –Hawk the ball. This might honestly be the only thing that matters. Xavier’s only bright spot on the defensive resume has been their ability to force turnovers, and ODU is catastrophic in ball security on the offensive end. If Xavier can force the Monarchs to cough the ball up and turn those into buckets on the other end, a lot of the rest of the issues might not matter.
- –Abandon the arc. Don’t get it twisted, this Xavier team shoots badly from all over, but they’re below average from behind the arc and well inside the top 100 in three-point rate. ODU cannot defend the paint at all but have been smothering from deep so far. I don’t know how predictive that trend will be going forward, but I do know I’m going to throw my remote through the screen if I have to watch the Muskies linger around the arc chucking hopeless threes all game again.
- –Show some pride. Like Kenny Frease said, that X at the center of the floor means something to a lot of people. This team is not overburdened with talent; they should at least being playing hard from tip to horn.
