PDA

View Full Version : #8 Musketeers grounded on Hawk Hill, 71-66



kyxu
03-06-2008, 11:35 PM
#8 Musketeers grounded on Hawk Hill, 71-66
by Mike Damone

Thursday night’s affair on Hawk Hill featured a tale of two teams. One was playing through the formalities of an Atlantic 10 season it had already clinched, with a school-record number of victories (25) in hand, a first-round bye wrapped up for its conference tournament and a likely top-five seed sewn up for the NCAA Tournament.
The other began its conference season with so much promise, sometimes touted as the most versatile team in the Atlantic 10. But each game of late seemed to push it farther from the NCAA Tournament bubble, losing five of its last seven games including three-straight at home. For the latter team, a fight for their postseason life, tempered with the emotion of their senior night and final game in Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse until 2010, allowed urgency to prevail in a thrilling upset of the Atlantic 10’s top team, 71-66.
Thursday night on Hawk Hill, the St. Joseph’s Hawks (18-10, 9-6) snapped the #9 Musketeers’ (25-5, 13-2) 11-game winning streak with a much-needed victory to possibly make a case for at least an at-large bid come Selection Sunday. The Hawks proved to be the more energetic, opportunistic and hard-working team, claiming a slim rebounding edge, burning the Musketeers several times for points in the paint and playing physical defense, forcing the Musketeers into just 39% shooting in the first half. When the Musketeers would try to score inside in the opening frame, the St. Joseph’s trees were ready to contest attempts into a bad shots or swat the ball away.
The loss for Xavier may not prove to be too damaging on paper, but it may give cause for concern when the Musketeers face physical teams with larger, more athletic inside players who can score from inside and out. SJU’s Ahmad Nivins (14 points,) routinely got positioning inside on Xavier’s Jason Love (6 pts, 6 reb) and Josh Duncan (7 points), scoring easy buckets and drawing fouls on the Musketeers’ front line. Pat Calathes (17 pts, 8 reb) of St. Joe’s wasn’t his usual self from behind-the-arc, but he was able to use capitalize at the line after using his quickness to beat his man off the dribble and get to the rim.
Xavier’s poor offensive performance early on could have been attributed to Drew Lavender’s inability to drive and dish, yet Xavier did itself no favors when the opportunities presented themselves. Traits that have kept Xavier on top for so long this season – great free-throw shooting, team defense, balanced scoring and effective outside shooting – were not there for the Musketeers.
Xavier went to the line just 13 times, connecting on only seven, and allowed the Hawks to shoot 49% from the field. Derrick Brown (18 pts, 5 reb) was the only Musketeer to score in double-figures, with Lavender coming the closest with nine points, which were all off triples. The Musketeers went a solid 11-for-25 from beyond the arc, but many of those came when the game was essentially out of reach.
Through most of the first half, it was a hotly-contested match-up with both teams exchanging buckets and leads, before the Hawks used a quick 7-0 run to take the lead for good. The Hawks went into halftime leading 33-26.
St. Joseph’s would lead by as many as 15 on two separate occasions in the second half, but a hoop and foul by CJ Anderson cut the Xavier deficit to just seven with 7:22 left. A Rob Ferguson three extended the St. Joe’s lead back to 12, before the Musketeers embarked on a furious rally that would come up short. Stanley Burrell (8 points) began a 13-4 run with a three from the top of the key, which he would follow with an assist on a Brown jam.
A pair of non-consecutive free throws from Calathes were followed by another dunk by Brown and a three from Josh Duncan (7 pts) off a flash screen for Lavender to make the score 67-63 in favor of the Hawks. The SJU lead was brought back out to six off a pair of Calathes free throws before Lavender hit a circus three while double-teamed to bring Xavier to within three, 69-66, with only 11 seconds remaining.
It would provid a glimmer of hope for what had been an anemic offensive evening for Xavier, but with SJU holding possession off the ensuing in-bounds play, the Musketeers were forced to foul with just seven seconds left and hope for some misfiring from the stripe. Unfortunately, Tasheed Carr (16 pts, 6 reb, 6 assists) calmly sank both free throws, and Xavier’s hopes for a rally, to provide the final margin.
The Musketeers will return home for their final game of regular season to take on the Richmond Spiders (16-12, 9-6). Xavier hopes to send seniors Burrell, Duncan and Lavender off on a winning note to conclude their Xavier careers at the Cintas Center, where the Musketeers are 16-1 this year. The Spiders are coming off a 58-53 win at home over the Fordham Rams.