Ever had something go poorly in the evening that you woke in the morning and ruminated on it for awhile? Maybe that thing was still lingering around, waiting for breakfast. Maybe that thing was yapping
at your door, wanting to go outside. Maybe that was a job decision and a laptop you wouldn’t need sitting on the table. We’ve all been there.
All of us say that sports shouldn’t effect how we feel. Reading Twitter this morning, most of us are not living up to that goal. Xavier was really awful last night. They weren’t competitive in a game against a team that ever Xavier team since that 2013 squad would have beaten. It wasn’t close, Xavier never rallied, it was like playing UConn in the Chris Mack years.
It’s not really the players. The effort was there, the team worked hard, dove after loose balls, ran hard, and generally seemed very involved in trying to win. They just, and this somehow seems more cruel, aren’t very good. The most talented player that Richard Pitino brought in (Pozzato) won’t be playing until January. Borovicanin is a project. Tre Carroll and Roddie Anderson are solid. After that…
Pitino took over a team that had no players and had to immediately try to convince anyone who would come that this was a stable place to be where they could raise their value. This after the program missed the tournament in five of seven years, had their coach produce a documentary about being All In, then leave, and with NIL that doesn’t match other teams in the Big East. This was always the likely result.
Which doesn’t make it much easier to watch. I’m not sure that after 2013, and let’s remember that team was even worse, I ever thought I’d see a Xavier team this bad again. Xavier turns teams over on defense, but gets torched all over the floor. The Musketeers might have an offense, but I’m yet to see it to tell you if it is any good. X is shooting 1.2% better inside the arc than they are outside it. That’s acceptable if you are shooting 54% or something from deep, not acceptable if you are shooting 36.2% from deep.
I’m not entirely certain what to tell you or what anyone was expecting from this team. If you were one of those people who thought a tournament berth was possible when this season started, I hope this has cleared things up for you. If you just like watching ball and enjoy seeing guys try, this may be the team for you. It’s not going to be very good, they are going to try as hard as they can. Of course people on Twitter will always complain about the effort, but that wasn’t the issue last night.
The issue is that this is the morning after, and the problem isn’t going away.
