The NFL regular season is over. Up here, people are celebrating the Myles Garrett sack record, have very big opinions on Kevin Stefanski getting fired, and either love or hate Shadeur Sanders. There is no
room for half-hearted takes in Cleveland in the winter. I’m guessing Bengals fans are pretty mad about wasting another year of the prime of Joe Burrow. That likely overshadows the fact that both college basketball teams in the city are the very definition of mediocre. More on that in a moment.
The college football playoff quarterfinals were this weekend and the committed the cardinal sin of all: they were boring. Ohio State losing was hilarious, but that doesn’t cover the fact that only one of the games was worth watching for actual sporting reasons, not just spite. The bowl games used to be the highlight of New Year’s. That system has been destroyed (which is fine, things change) and in place of it we get a bunch of games featuring teams playing in not even half full stadiums, then two weekends of incredibly boring football. In trying to make their product more like March Madness, college football took apart what they had and replaced it with something quite… meh.
That brings us around to Xavier. They will not be featuring in March Madness this year but will likely not face the indignity of their rival doing it either. UC still hasn’t beaten anyone better than Dayton and has a murderous schedule coming up with no given reason to think they’ll get any better. Wes Miller is basically just playing out the string until he gets canned this spring and then UC starts over with another guy who keeps them in the lower third of the Big 12.
On this Black Monday (Ruben Amorim, Kevin Stefanski, Wilifred Nancy, and whoever coached the Raiders have all been fired since I started this), Xavier stands in good stead. It’s not easy to see what the plan is on the court right now. Honestly, Xavier isn’t doing anything terribly well at the moment. You can see what the plan in the program is. The team is clearly comprised of guys who genuinely enjoy one another’s company. It’s also clear that the team respects the coaching staff. Watch players come off the court and you can occasionally see frustration, but never any sort of dismissal of the coaches.
Personally, it seems like Xavier is in good hands with Coach Pitino. Sure, there are the usual morons on Twitter that want him fired, but those people won’t be happy no matter who the coach is unless Xavier is in the Final Four. It all comes back to expectations. What did you want to see from this season? Losing to DePaul probably wasn’t in there, but if you were looking for a team that fought for entire games, ran hard, played hard, and tried to be exciting, you’re probably happy. If you love making layups and free throws, well, I might suggest you look elsewhere.
What does the failure of professional football in Ohio and a drive-by of college football have to do with this? Only this: success in sport is fleeting. Xavier isn’t going to be playing meaningful games in March like they were last year. They, however, appear to have put a good base in place. That’s maybe better than you can say of a lot of the teams in the area. In this season in flux, that’s all you can ask for.
Until Wednesday, when Xavier battles Marquette for not last place.
