NCAA Tournament S16 Game Thread: Xavier v Texas (3/24/2023)

Found this interesting from Seth Davis on the Atheltic on Texas. The premise of the article was all the teams have questions. Interesting to see defense listed as a question about Texas who is top 10 in KenPom in defensive efficiency.

Texas

How good is this defense?

The Longhorns rank 10th in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency on KenPom, but their other defensive numbers are not overwhelming. They’re 77th nationally in defensive field goal percentage (42.1), 93rd in 3-point percentage defense (32.3) and 90th in points allowed (67.2). Now they are going up against arguably the best offense they have faced in Xavier, which is ranked ninth nationally in efficiency, fourth in 3-point percentage (38.9) and sixth in assists per made field goals (64.1 percent). The Musketeers put on a clinic against Pitt, shooting 47.6 percent and dishing 22 assists (to just eight turnovers) on 30 made field goals. The only teams in the Big 12 besides Texas that are ranked in the top 20 in offensive efficiency are Baylor and West Virginia. It’s imperative that the Longhorns are dialed in defensively and use their experience and physicality, because they do not want to get into a shootout with this team.

Here was his question and comments on X:

Xavier

Are the Musketeers ready to play championship basketball?

We saw numerous instances during the first week where older, stronger teams imposed their will on younger, sleeker opponents. (Tennessee-Duke, San Diego State-Furman, Michigan State-Marquette, to name a few.) Texas is the sixth-oldest team in the country, per KenPom, and it won a tournament championship in the most physical conference in the country. Moreover, Texas will have a considerable advantage in terms of depth, especially since Xavier has been without injured starter Zach Freemantlesince early February. That injury made the Musketeers better defensively because Sean Miller replaced Freemantle in the starting lineup with 6-8 senior forward Jerome Hunter, a defensive stalwart who was, surprisingly, the team’s leading scorer last week in Greensboro (combined 38 points on 14 of 21 shooting). It would make a huge difference if Hunter can put up points against the Longhorns, but the Musketeers can’t count on that happening. They’ll need to bring their big boy pants to Kansas City.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by D-West & PO-Z

We did have Free @UConn but he fouled out and only played 21 mins. Hunter had more mins and points that game.

I agree, Texas seems tough, but UConn and Creighton are really tough too and X went 4-1 against them.

Will need our best defensive effort to win.

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Amusingly, the biggest thing Xavier is missing from Free being out at this point are his 5 fouls.

The team is forced to dial back the defensive energy because they can't afford to get guys in foul trouble -- the bench is too thin behind Des.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Caveat

Amusingly, the biggest thing Xavier is missing from Free being out at this point are his 5 fouls.

The team is forced to dial back the defensive energy because they can't afford to get guys in foul trouble -- the bench is too thin behind Des.

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Oversimplification but I get your point.

If all they needed was 5 fouls then Edwards would be great. They need someone who has 5 fouls to give who can also contribute elsewhere and that they can trust which is what they don't have.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by D-West & PO-Z

Here was his question and comments on X:

Xavier

Are the Musketeers ready to play championship basketball?
They’ll need to bring their big boy pants to Kansas City.

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Hahaha! Davis with his usual “hot take”.
Uh , Seth. I think the Big East is a “Big Boy League”?
We did sweep UConn and Providence and split with won 2-3 from Creighton. Is that “Big Boy” enough?
This overhyping of the Big 12 just kills me.
Seth can go pound salt.

I'm curious to see if Sean tries to get Edwards a few extra minutes in the 1st half if the game is fairly tight. Nunge getting in foul trouble is basically a death blow for us at this point so Sean could gamble with earlier minutes for Cesare. My guess is no, he does not, but it's something I'll be watching for.

One other point. Texas is absolutely beatable. They're good, but they're beatable. The media narrative is that we don't play very good defense, but my guess is if you extrapolate our defensive metrics since Free went out back to the beginning of the year, we're much better right now than the perception that's out there.

Just need to avoid foul trouble and we should be right there in this game. The bigger concern is me staying sober enough to be able to see the television at tip off.

All I know is Coach CWeez gave his stamp of approval on X's preparedness and mindset at practice this week. That's good enough for me.

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Originally Posted by drudy23

All I know is Coach CWeez gave his stamp of approval on X's preparedness and mindset at practice this week. That's good enough for me.

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Just seeing CWeez mentioned again tells me X is back from the abyss. :)

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Originally Posted by Strange Brew

Just seeing CWeez mentioned again tells me X is back from the abyss. :)

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Yes. Xavier is back “On Deam”!

At first I was frightened about this match-up but the more I think about it, the better I feel about our chances. WVU was good, who we beat obviously, but held Texas close, I was really frightened about Carr, Hunter, and Rice with some of our defensive troubles of letting guards get into the lane, but I don't know, I think we can negate that a bit. Need Disu/Allen to be contained without Nunge and Hunter getting into foul trouble, that's by far the biggest thing. I also think Souley is due to break out, he hasn't been shooting or playing well in the tournament at all, I think this is going to be the game where he makes a statement to remind people how damn good he is.