this year

[WCWIII]

OK, first five game skid in over 35 years. I think it's kinda cool that were still talking about whether we are a lock ... love this league!

In these recent losses, I've seen improvements especially with Goodin and our bigs. Bernard had a good game yesterday. A couple more regular season games for the team to further gel. No reason why we don't compete for a Big East championship and a run beyond the first weekend in the tournament ... this year.

In short, I don't see any huge flaws in the roster. No question, we need to step up and not make mistakes (like yesterday's stretch).

The "team gel" metric is one I look at. It's stalled out a few times with injuries/Davis. We're not all the way there, but this could still be a special year.

(By the way, you all come up for the DePaul game next Sat when their final Allstate arena game will be a Xavier home game).

[XMuskieFTW]

I just can't see this team winning 3 straight days with our depth. Goodin isn't going to be able to be effective for 105 minutes over a 3 days span. I'd be happy with one win at MSG.

I do think we've improved though. I keep thinking we are getting close, but we can't just put it all together. Maybe we never will, but the potential to is there.

See you at DePaul!

[xufan2434]

Anything is possible when you get to March. Especially if Tre or JP get hot. Sucks they crumbled in crunch time yesterday. This is the time of the year when X teams of the past start really putting it together at the end of games. I've pretty much accepted at this point it's just not in the cards. However, only possible spin zone is that now they really are looking at an 11 seed. Which is basically what I wanted any way if they weren't going to be a 6

[markchal]

No reason why we don't compete for a Big East championship and a run beyond the first weekend in the tournament ... this year.

In short, I don't see any huge flaws in the roster.

I can't quite tell if this is serious or not. We have some pretty major flaws. Obviously, depth is a huge factor (especially when you're trying to win 3 games in 3 days), but we also shoot the ball terribly from 3, and we don't have even a top 50 defense. We lack guys that can create their own shots, we still have some of the flaws we had even before the Ed injuries (ft shooting, field goal droughts, no one that steps up down the stretch, inconsistent offense from bigs).

I think this has been a disappointing team somewhat even before the injuries, so I don't want to give Mack a total free pass on the year, but given the injuries and roster makeup we're stuck with now, I think it's kind of hard to have any expectations for this team, so I've kind of resigned myself to that.

We're definitely limping towards the tourney, and largely have played poorly away from home, and just can't quite get over the hump even when we do play with good effort and offense. It is what it is, but right now I'll settle for one more win and avoiding the play-in game.

[D-West & PO-Z]

Someone just told me we are locked into the 7 seed for BE tourney is that right?

So all we have to do is beat DePaul twice in a row to get into the ncaa tourney?

That normally wouldnt be a scary proposition. Still think we can get it done.

[AviatorX]

Someone just told me we are locked into the 7 seed for BE tourney is that right?

So all we have to do is beat DePaul twice in a row to get into the ncaa tourney?

That normally wouldnt be a scary proposition. Still think we can get it done.

Yeah, problem is that is a 0 on the positive scale so we are basically just hoping to hold ground and a loss would be killer.

Beat DePaul twice and take a swing at Butler I guess.

[X-band '01]

Beating Butler in the 2/7 game would also be a big help.

[D-West & PO-Z]

If we win the next 2 I think we lock ourselves into a bid.

[XMuskieFTW]

If we win the next 2 I think we lock ourselves into a bid.

I'd like to think this, but does a 13 loss team with with potentially no top 25 rpi wins that is on the slide get in? I still think yes looking at the competition on the bubble. We don't have any bad losses in terms of opponent. Still, I'd be very nervous if we beat Depaul twice then lose.

[Backyard Champ]

Agreed, but if we lose one of the next two, I wouldn't blame the committee for keeping us out. Sucks, but we must beat DePaul twice to lock a bid. Most of the time I'd sleep easy knowing that was what needed to happen.. though I'm not sleeping easy now.