One of four ranked teams in the Big East, Xavier comes into Wednesday’s game with the nation’s sixth-longest active win streak — nine games. They haven’t lost since dropping back-to-back games in Portland to Duke and Gonzaga the week of Thanksgiving. How they’ve gotten there is interesting — with an elite offense and a short bench.
Sean Miller, in his first season since returning to the head coach job at Xavier, has wasted no time in putting his stamp on the team. They weren’t bad offensively a year ago — they finished 37th in adjusted offensive efficiency — but this year’s squad has taken it to another level. They rank fourth nationally in effective field goal percentage, fourth in three point shooting, 25th in two point shooting, and second in assists to field goals made. If you prefer counting stats, they score 84.1 points per game, 10th most in the country, and hand out 21.1 assists per game, the most of any team in D1.
Xavier’s five starters all average double figures in scoring. All of them shoot 40% or higher from three-point range. All of them shoot 53% or better inside the arc. Four of them rank among the top 20 scorers in the Big East.
What makes them so deadly, beyond their sheer ability to make shots, is their shot selection. Nowhere is that better showcased than in their three-point shooting; despite being so good at it, they don’t rely on it. Just 30.7% of their total shot attempts have been three-pointers, 321st fewest in D1, and they get just 26.8% of their points on made threes, ranking 292nd.
That and the speed with which they play. Xavier’s average possession length is just 15.7 seconds, 20th fastest in the country.
Individually, UTEP transfer Souley Boum leads them in scoring (and is second in the Big East) at 17.2 points per game. Players transferring up a level usually don’t continue to score like they did at their previous school, but the electric 6’3” guard has not missed a beat. In fact, he’s exceeded even the wildest projections — he’s showed the ability to score from anywhere, making 47.1% of his threes per game and getting to the rim off the bounce, and has scored in double figures in 14 straight games. He’s also created for his teammates, ranking eighth in the Big East in assists per game with 4.7 and running the show offensively.
Last week against Villanova, Boum had 22 points on 10-of-10 shooting from the line with 10 rebounds, six assists and two steals while playing 39 minutes.
Colby Jones (14.1 ppg., 5.7 apg.) leads the team and is second in the Big East in assists per game. He’s a reliable jump shooter but does most of his damage in the paint; the Jays experienced that first-hand a year ago when he scored 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting and 4-of-7 from the line in their win in Cincinnati, to go along with nine boards.
Inside, Jack Nunge and Zach Freemantle are an enviable duo; the 7’0” Nunge stretches the floor with his perimeter shooting (41.3%) and opens up space for Boum to move around, while the 6’9” Freemantle operates closer to the basket. Their games compliment each other well, and when they’re both playing well they’ve made Xavier close to impossible to defend.
Their own defense has been another story.
KenPom ranks Xavier’s defensive efficiency as 77th in the nation. Their effective field goal percentage defense is 177th (50.0%) and their three point defense is 297th (36.3%). They don’t force turnovers (18.1% of opponents possessions, ranking 224th) or block shots (10.0% of shots, 129th), either.
When they’ve been able to outscore people, it’s been fine. When they’ve found themselves in close games, it’s been a mixed bag. In a four-point loss to Gonzaga, they needed a stop in the final minute and couldn’t get it, losing 88-84. In an 81-79 loss to Indiana, it was a similar story.
Heck, even Georgetown — GEORGETOWN! — scored 1.16 points per possession against this defense. The Hoyas haven’t won a Big East game in nearly 700 days and have an offense that ranks 148th in adjusted efficiency, and they scored with ease on the Musketeers.
Their lack of depth has hurt them most acutely in that area; they’ve often looked worn down or tired at the end of games. They basically play seven guys, and their bench gets just 25.6% of the total minutes played (ranking 310th in D1). In other words, they’re in the same boat Creighton is in, as the Jays’ bench plays a virtually identical 25.2% of minutes to rank 318th.
Fortunately for the Musketeers, eight of their 13 wins have been by double digits and 10 have been by seven or more points. They’ve been successful outscoring people. How sustainable that will be is the biggest question they’ll face down the stretch.
- Tip: 6:00pm
- Venue: Cintas Center, Cincinnati, OH
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Jason Benetti and Bill Raftery
- In Omaha: Cox channel 78 (SD), 1078 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 620 (SD), 1620 (HD)
- Outside Omaha: FS1 Channel Finder
- Satellite: DirecTV channel 219, Dish Network channel 150
- Cable Cutters: Available on all major streaming platforms
- Streaming on the Fox Sports app and website
- Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
- Announcers: John Bishop
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
At 5-0 in the Big East Conference, Xavier is off to its best start ever. XU is in its 10th season in the league. Their previous best starts were 3-0 in 2013-14, 2016-17 and 2017-18.
Zach Freemantle led the way in their 88-80 win over Villanova last week with a season-high 29 points, one shy of his career high, to go with 11 rebounds, four assists, one steal and no turnovers. Freemantle scored 21 of his points in the second half.
Xavier’s assist average of 21.1 apg.(first in the nation) is on target to set a school record; only the 1960-61 team (19.8 apg.) has averaged 18.4 apg. or more. Xavier’s field goal percentage of .510? XU has not shot 50 percent or more for a season since the 1992-93 season (.501). Xavier’s 3-point field goal percentage (.408) is on pace to break the school record; XU has only shot 40 percent for a season once (.400 in the 1992-93 season).
Arthur Kaluma grabbed a career-high 16 rebounds in Saturday’s game at No. 4 UConn, four more than his previous best done twice previously. Kaluma’s 16 rebounds were the most by a Bluejay since joining the Big East 10 years ago, and last matched on Nov. 12, 2012 when Gregory Echenique also had 16 boards vs. UAB. After just one double-double in his first 45 career games, Kaluma has posted back-to-back double-doubles.
Baylor Scheierman enters Wednesday’s tilt at Xavier having made 198 three-pointers in his college career, doing so at a 40.5 percent clip. Scheierman also owns 1,311 points, 782 rebounds, 366 assists and 101 career steals. Per Basketball-Reference.com, Scheierman is the only player in the last 30 years with career totals of at least 198 three-pointers, 350 assists and 710 defensive rebounds.
Xavier leads the nation with 21.1 assists per game while also ranking third in the country in field goal percentage (.510), fifth in three-point percentage (.408) and 10th in points per game (84.1). Meanwhile in 429 games under Greg McDermott, Creighton has allowed an opponent to dish more than 21.1 assists, score more than 84.1 points, shoot better than 51.0 percent from the field and better than 40.8 percent from three-point range in the same game just four times.
Xavier owns a 20-16 lead in the series with Creighton, including an 11-7 mark in Cincinnati. Twenty-three of the 36 all-time meetings have been within five points in the final minute, including nine of the last 15 games.
Greg McDermott is 10-11 against Xavier, but has never faced Sean Miller. Miller is 1-3 against Creighton, on the other hand, all during his first foray as Xavier coach when Dana Altman was on the Bluejay bench.
On January 11, 2020 the Jays beat Xavier in Cincinnati as Greg McDermott picked up his 500th career win.
The key sequence in the game came with CU holding a 47-43 lead. Marcus Zegarowski missed a three-pointer. Zach Freemantle was running in transition for what looked to be an easy layup, but Mitch Ballock met him at the rim and came up with a clean block.
It resulted in a four-point swing, as Denzel Mahoney answered with a bucket for the Jays to turn what might have been a 47-45 edge into a 49-43 lead. They couldn’t pull away, though, as Marshall scored five straight for Xavier. Creighton came out of a timeout with counter-adjustments — they ran Christian Bishop off of high ball screens on two straight possessions, slipping him to the basket for easy layups. That forced Xavier to defend more or less straight up, and then the Jays closed. Ahead 51-48, they sealed the win with a 14-5 run that featured six consecutive made baskets.
Ballock made several clutch shots to build the Jays’ initial lead, and then his fellow junior guard took over where he’d left off. Ty-Shon Alexander scored 11 of his 18 points in the game’s decisive minutes, including back-to-back jumpers that pushed the lead back into double-digits at 58-48.
The Bottom Line:
ESPN’s BPI gives Xavier a 62.5% chance of victory, and Vegas favors Xavier by 3.5 points. KenPom predicts a four-point Xavier win.
This feels like something close to a must-win for the Jays doesn’t it? They’re solid in the computer metrics but their 9-7 record is in need of a marquee win. I think they get it tonight.
Creighton 79, Xavier 75
