As an author whose name I can’t be bothered to look up wrote in a book I haven’t read, all happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. By the same token, most good basketball
teams have a certain overlap in skill sets, but there are a million ways to be bad at basketball.
Since the sustained excellence Xavier had enjoyed since the days came to an end with the departure of Chris Mack to Louisville, the Muskies have had a variety of shortcomings hold them back. From injuries to a pandemic to – worst of all – Brian O’Connell, there has been a different issue every time they’ve fallen short of the Sweet 16 bid that once seemed like a birthright. This year, it has been a simple inability to put the ball in the bucket that has most often hampered the team’s success.
By the same token, Providence has been struggling to find the right formula for success since Xavier man Pete Gillen took them to an Elite 8 well before their current players’ parents met. Sure Ed Cooley schmoozed the media and advanced his own brand, but he stole money for more than a decade and returned a paltry three (3) tournament wins for the trouble. Now Kim English has brought his #mindset to the Friars, but three years in, his seat is warming.
Both of these teams represent fan bases who have grown to expect a higher level of play than they’ve gotten in recent years. Both of them are basically dead in the water in terms of at-large consideration this season. It’s settled fact that someone has to win this game; whether that will end up mattering at all is significantly more debatable.
Team fingerprint
The Friars love to play fast. They’re 21st in the nation in tempo and average just a hair over 15 seconds per offensive possession. They’re a solid shooting team, with above-average but not elite numbers inside and beyond the arc and an exceptional 78.4% team FT%. They’re just inside the top 100 in ball security. Their offensive rebounding and free throw rate numbers are basically average, but the whole package shakes out to a top 30 offense.
Their defense is less impressive. They’re actually really good inside the arc but absolutely abysmal beyond it; teams shoot almost 38% from deep on them. They’re bad at forcing turnovers and even worse on the defensive glass. They’ve held opponents under a point per possession just 4 times in 15 games this year; if they can’t run up the score, they struggle to hold the other team back.
Three questions
-What is Xavier’s offensive identity? Not that long ago, I’d have told you that Xavier makes threes and takes care of the ball. Now they’re shooting 32% from deep in conference play and are ninth in the Big East in TO rate. They still can’t score around the bucket and are dead last in the league in offensive rebounding and free throw rate. They’re not the worst offense in the league, but they’d better hope nothing happens to Marquette.
-Who is the go-to guy? Okay, so maybe when the mechanics of the offense are malfunctioning, you can just throw it to someone and have him go get a bucket. The problem is that Xavier doesn’t really have that, either. Malik Messina-Moore is the only player with a usage rate of any consequence who has an ORtg over 100 in conference play. He has at least 14 in ever Big East game so far, but he was averaging 4.5 in the 9 games leading up to it. He obviously runs hot and cold. Tre Carroll has given a yeoman’s effort with mixed results. All Wright’s shooting has been the only thing making Roddie Anderson’s shooting look acceptable, and Jovan Milicevic has been completely MIA. Someone see if Zach Freemantle has another year of eligibility knocking around somewhere.
-Is Providence due for a breakout? The Friars are 1-3 in league play, but they’re not that far from being undefeated. They lost to Butler and UConn in a total of three overtimes and to Seton Hall by five in a game they led with just over a minute left. They’ve got a positive scoring margin in league play and have trailed by an average of less than a bucket at the end of regulation in their three losses. These guys might be on the brink of something.
Three keys
-Defend the arc. Xavier is currently the worst three-point defense in the Big East and Providence is third in both rate and percentage. Given half a chance, the Friars will gleefully shoot Xavier right out of this one. I hate typing in a key that’s basically “be good at something you’ve been bad at,” but this game might really be that simple.
-Get back to basics. Xavier simply isn’t good enough at offense to absorb the occasional spell of really bad ball security, and they’ve been demonstrating that in Big East play. The most vexing thing has been how few of the turnovers feel truly forced; mostly it has been mental lapses and an inability to catch the dang ball. They’re not going to go from shooting 32% from deep to looking like a handful of Steph Curries, but cleaning up the slop could go a long way to making the viewing experience more palatable.
-Hunt contact. Providence is last in the league in defensive free throw rate, and their two-foul participation (a measure of how likely a coach is to play a player through early foul trouble) is only around 20%. I know it’s hardly joga bonita, but if the Muskies can send some Friars to the bench early, there’s every chance it gums up the works enough to see the home team safely across the finish line.
