Xavier Basketball 2020-21

[surfxu]

Not sure how many listen to the Xavier coach's show on 55 WKRC on Monday nights at 7pm (sometimes they actually have the podcast available on their web site so you can listen to it the next day or whenever), but some good info there. X resumed practice on Saturday. It was a terrible practice, totally disjointed and a ton of mistakes offensively and defensively. Sunday's practice was much better and expects the improvements to continue as the week goes on. Miles is practicing. Had a bad hip injury that occurred in a practice a couple of weeks ago. Travis said Miles had his best practice in a X uniform on Sunday. He may see some minutes, game changer around the rim and a shot swatter like no one else on this team. Just needs more strength to hold his ground and finish through contact. KyKy update from Dante on last week's show, great kid, love what he can do, best pure shooter on the team. Role is different this year, not just a spot up shooter role, needs to also be a facilitator. That means working the ball around, taking care of the ball and defending. He's been a little banged up, better now, but when he's in he has to let the game come to him. The ball is going to find the best shooter eventually, but taking a 3 point shot 5 seconds into the shot clock is usually not the best shot for Xavier. He's working hard but had been "fighting the system" a bit. Confident they can get him there, and we need him and have his best interest at heart.
Schedule wise... Mario was on the last half of the show and said he's not sure how they are going to get all the games in, most likely some will be left off. Seemed to indicate that out of the 4 missed games that 2 have been "rescheduled" although didn't indicate what those were at this point (I don't think). Also indicated that they got very late notice from the Big East that X could have scheduled a non-conference game this past Tuesday (yesterday) in lieu of the G-town cancellation. Sounded like options were somewhat limited as far as a major conference opponent on such short notice. If X had gotten the go-ahead very close to the beginning of the "pause" date then it would have been a lot more likely to have happened (squeezing in a ACC, SEC, Big 10 type team). Absolutely no benefit to playing a mid-low major at this point in the eyes of the selection committee (they were told) like a NKU, Miami, OU, Wright State.

[surfxu]

Mario said that a bubble is most likely off the table at this point. The most likely scenario (other than what's on the schedule as we see it now) would be a "pod" system where teams that need to catch up multiple games are all in one location for a week or so. He gave an example of Georgetown, Villanova, X and DePaul all playing each other in Chicago or something.

[Xavier]

I saw UCONN has to reschedule their next two games because a game official at their last game had covid. The last team they played was Butler....hope the game is still on for Friday.

[Lloyd Braun]

I saw UCONN has to reschedule their next two games because a game official at their last game had covid. The last team they played was Butler....hope the game is still on for Friday.

Hard to imagine the ref only had contact with UConn and not Butler.

[paulxu]

Hard to imagine the ref only had contact with UConn and not Butler.

If the game was at Butler, I can imagine that.

[nuts4xu]

Which ref was it?

[boozehound]

Surf - Thanks for posting the recap. Some interesting tidbits in there RE: Kyky. Hope all is well, brother.

[nuts4xu]

Which ref was it?

One of these bastards....

Pat Driscoll, Tony Chiazza, Tommy Morrissey

[JTG]

If the game was at Butler, I can imagine that.

Every game @ Butler is 8 against 5 in favor of the home team. Especially during Steven's tenure they always got away with bumping, grabbing and flopping at unprecedented levels.

[JTG]

3 more days until a game.... fingers toes and testicles crossed that we make it.

Testicular torsion can lead to a trip to the ER. Just an FYI.