Game Thread: Xavier vs. Providence (2/24/2021)

We have a contractor and our designer coming in the morning to go over our master bath renovation. The last thing in the house that needs attention. LOVE the finishes we’ve picked out. It’s going to cost WAY too much, but the wife just got a very healthy bonus. They will do the work while we are in the NC mountains for a few weeks in the hot summer months. I’m excited about getting this done, and maybe getting the wood floors refinished at the same time.

As a Buffalo Bills fan since the 60’s I am well versed in coping with disappointment.

Transfer kyky and go to a big east school and every time you drain a three tell Steele he an idiot

Yup that’s the shot you want - a three by a big with no one down low to get the rebound.

And Creighton next - looooooong off-season with no post-season again.

Oh what the hell? One more time ... 13-7 / 6-7.

Uh oh - Trav is mean muggin on the sideline - must be getting close to post game presser time.

Good that Carter got a chance to miss a three. Traditions are important.

This team has the identity of its front court.

A four, who was an offensive liability, and now a full scale liability.

And a five, who’s a nice player, but with a finesse game.

Fire him. Sick of the love affair with the white stiffs on this team and whatever stubborn bullshit he has against kyky

This is the third year...it’s extremely apparent it’s the coach and not the players, and even if it was the players, almost all of them are his guys

You could see it coming.

He's just not the answer.

Legit risk of digging a hole you can't dig out of in this conference.

Wow. That was bad.

I’m rapidly approaching the same attitude towards X basketball that I have with the Bengals. I just expect them to lose and continue to disappoint.


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This team won’t win another game. The coach is fine rolling out the same guys and getting the same results. I am okay with Odom but to keep running Carter and Kunkel out there is why the coach appears to have lost the team. They are not having fun and the coach isn’t helping them. I mean if you are going to lose at least try something different.

I don’t mind a coach who isn’t perfect, but a coach who doesn’t recognize his own mistakes so he can’t improve is a bad, bad thing.

There is ZERO logical explanation for the minutes Carter gets. ZERO.

We're going to have 3 guys graduate and 3 guys transfer. It's not looking good boys and girls.

We're on the verge of some very bad things.

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Originally Posted by bjf123

I’m rapidly approaching the same attitude towards X basketball that I have with the Bengals. I just expect them to lose and continue to disappoint.
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I don't know. Those post game pressers with Travis and Zac. They sure do inspire me. Changing the culture. Getting better on D. Same as it ever was.

3pt defense has been a Xavier issue for 5+ years. I thought Travis would fix it and it's only gotten worse.

Steele will probably take their jerseys off tonight and get nice and fake tough

I've been a season ticket holder for over twenty five years. I can take losses. But I'll be damned if I renew my tickets next year if Travis is still coach (and he will be). This is not even entertaining.

Can someone be a dear and link the press conference? I’m excited to hear all the coach speak bs

I'll save you the trouble. It was short:

"Our 3 pt defense stunk"
"Couldn't throw it in the ocean"
"We gotta figure it out man"
"Free was great tonight"

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Originally Posted by Xville

Can someone be a dear and link the press conference? I’m excited to hear all the coach speak bs

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I listened - it was very vanilla.

No tough guy talk, but no accountability either.

Byron and Joe are way too nice.

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Originally Posted by KabeX

I'll save you the trouble. It was short:

"Our 3 pt defense stunk" —-because you play the wrong people
"Couldn't throw it in the ocean"——because you let free and carter shoot 3s and don’t let Tandy play
"We gotta figure it out man" ——- you never change anything, ever. Next game if Johnson is healthy, you’ll get your coach by numbers coloring book out and play the same starting lineup like you have almost all year., and you’ll continue to have carter and free stand around the three point line.
"Free was great tonight" ——-yeah he scored...I thought it was important that they played good d? I guess that’s only for Tandy. (Yes I know he rebounded, that’s only one part of playing d)

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Fire steele

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Originally Posted by drudy23

There is ZERO logical explanation for the minutes Carter gets. ZERO.

We're going to have 3 guys graduate and 3 guys transfer. It's not looking good boys and girls.

We're on the verge of some very bad things.

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Carter is a role player, I’m not sure what people want from him. He’s absolutely not the reason we got killed tonight.

Our team defense is primarily the reason for our poor play. We simply aren’t playing together, defensively. Too many times opposing teams have wide open looks, and our players are wondering how it happened. Maybe it’s poor communication, poor scheme, or lack of reps. Either way, it’s bad. It’s not even just one player, Freemantle is absolutely a defensive liability. He’s great on offense, but is lost defensively.

Scruggs may have put up some points tonight, but he is not the leader he was to start the season. There was a time where he was looking like he would be 1st team all big east. He’s fallen off quit a bit. If we want to turn things around, I believe it starts with Scruggs.

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Originally Posted by Backyard Champ

Carter is a role player, I’m not sure what people want from him. He’s absolutely not the reason we got killed tonight.

Our team defense is primarily the reason for our poor play. We simply aren’t playing together, defensively. Too many times opposing teams have wide open looks, and our players are wondering how it happened. Maybe it’s poor communication, poor scheme, or lack of reps. Either way, it’s bad. It’s not even just one player, Freemantle is absolutely a defensive liability. He’s great on offense, but is lost defensively.

Scruggs may have put up some points tonight, but he is not the leader he was to start the season. There was a time where he was looking like he would be 1st team all big east. He’s fallen off quit a bit. If we want to turn things around, I believe it starts with Scruggs.

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I agree he's a role player - then he should be playing role player minutes.

Scruggs was the best player on the floor tonight - well besides the surfer dude.

Scruggs is the least of this team's worries.

Watching the game Scruggs did not dominate. He missed buckets at the rim, dribbled out of control, and did not lead in any way. Just a completely different player than he was 2 months ago. He got his points tonight, but he certainly isn’t leading the team the way he was when we were clicking. I don’t think he’s been the leader we desperately need since our Covid breaks.

We’ve seen the potential this team has, which is why this is frustrating. I’d like to say more games together would have made a difference, but I’m not sure that’s the case.

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Originally Posted by drudy23

I agree he's a role player - then he should be playing role player minutes.

Scruggs was the best player on the floor tonight - well besides the surfer dude.

Scruggs is the least of this team's worries.

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Paul was ok and he wasn’t the reason they lost for sure, but he was 8-21 from the floor, 0-4 from 3, had 3 assists and 2 turnovers. If he had help from a wing that would have been ok. But the way this game was going Paul needed to be more efficient. I also think he is beat for whatever reason and does not seem to be fully engaged. This team definitely lacks a leader on the floor. The good news I think for the future is that I think Odom and Jones will bring leadership on the floor.

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Originally Posted by drudy23

I listened - it was very vanilla.

No tough guy talk, but no accountability either.

Byron and Joe are way too nice.

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Probably a tough spot for Byron and Joe though. They arent reporters/journalists.

Let’s hope things can get turned around but right now a few things are as clear as a sunny day:

We currently have only one proven BE caliber big and even he is a below average defender right now.

Scruggs is not as good (nor is the team) when Johnson is out of the lineup.

The defense is not getting any better, despite Travis continually promising everyone that it will.

Travis still struggles miserably to understand which lineups work well.

Steele seems to think his coaching choices are not part of the reason this team is not playing up to their potential.

Travis believes hard work in practice trumps talent or the hot hand when it comes to extended playing time in a game.

Steele doesn’t see his bigs living out on the perimeter and shooting threes at will hurts the team, even when there are clearly better 3 point shooting guards on the floor.

There is no truly good defender in the paint on the current roster and no one coming in next year who looks to be able to change that glaring issue.

Hearing Travis push the “I’m not worried about the offense” narrative during the past 4 games and then today hearing him say his players “Couldn’t throw it into the ocean” is not giving fans confidence that they can trust what he says at this point.

“We gotta figure it out” are not exactly the words you want to hear from the head coach with so few games left in the season. If he hasn’t paid enough attention to “figure it out” by now... especially when one of the things he and his staff haven’t “figured it out” is how to teach his team to play solid defense and when one of the thing he hasn’t figured out is that HE continues to make the type of bad decisions (horrible lineups, waiting too long to call timeouts, allowing bigs to shoot 3s at will, etc) that ultimately cripples his team and puts them in the kind of holes that are almost impossible for them to crawl out of and win games.

Not reading through the thread so it may have been said- but the team put up 40+ in the 2nd half. Mainly by attacking the rim- we even saw a handful of players that cut without the ball well. Everything is better as we move to the hoop. It was a completely different offense than the 1st half. I guess that is at least a good sign for half time adjustments but why was it so bad in the 1st half.

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Originally Posted by Xavier

Not reading through the thread so it may have been said- but the team put up 40+ in the 2nd half. Mainly by attacking the rim- we even saw a handful of players that cut without the ball well. Everything is better as we move to the hoop. It was a completely different offense than the 1st half. I guess that is at least a good sign for half time adjustments but why was it so bad in the 1st half.

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I think in the first half it’s just they didn’t make shots. Paul and Colby both missed a lot of first half shots at the rim and Zach missed a couple as well. In addition, they also missed a ton of really good look threes in the first half as well. So if they make a couple of more threes and Paul and Colby make a couple of easy shots at the rim, then they score 35 or 36 first half points and the offense would have looked much better. They had plenty of good looks in the first half, but you have to make the freaking shots. Also since they struggle to offensive rebound the ball it’s another reason for more Griffin and less Carter. Carter just struggles to get offensive rebounds so one and done doesn’t help the offense either. Zach was better getting offensive rebounds but other than him Xavier only had one other offensive rebound.

33 minutes for Carter with 2 points and 2 rebounds. 7 minutes for Griffin, zero for Ramsey and Miles. Why??............and 4 minutes for Tandy? Come on man!

Griffin is the only one of him/Miles/Ramsey that isn’t totally lost on D and he still isn’t good. Problem with him is conditioning too, he didn’t have the gas after missing so much time to play much more than he did.

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Originally Posted by murray87

33 minutes for Carter with 2 points and 2 rebounds. 7 minutes for Griffin, zero for Ramsey and Miles. Why??............and 4 minutes for Tandy? Come on man!

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Miles wasn’t dressed so he couldn’t play. He’s not ready and also not practicing so that doesn’t help. But yes Griffin, Tandy and Wilcher getting zero second half minutes is a joke when the guys on the floor couldn’t get anything going. I can see staying with Paul, Odom and Zach because they were producing but, Kunkel, Carter and Jones just didn’t get anything done. Should have played Griffin and Wilcher and Tandy and took out either Jones, Carter and Kunkel. At least try Griffin or wilcher and take Carter out. Him being on the floor isn’t helping on defense or offense and he isn’t rebounding.