Game Thread: Xavier v. Texas Southern (11/4/2024)

[GoMuskies]

Not being able to watch the game, the two things that stand out on the box score are four guys scoring 73 of our 78 points and not being able to outrebound TX Southern.

Let's improve before Friday!

[Xville]

Conwell, Free, Dayvion and Swain all looked the part, and Swain is probably our next draft pick.

The rebounding and the play of Dante Maddox, as a guy who has played a ton of basketball, is very concerning.

[drudy23]

Zero FGs from the bench isn't great.

[UCGRAD4X]

Yes. We need someone to be able to come in and make a bucket or two. This team will not go far with the level of bench scoring from last night.

[waggy]

The bench will be fine. Remember last season there were questions early if Q was going to be any good.

[MHettel]

I watched the game and well...the previous comments here sum up that experience. But I always like to analyze the box score as well.

-Held STU to 41.4% shooting overall. Although we allowed 10 made 3's on 23 attempts (43.5%), that means we held them to 40% from 2 (14 of 35).

- Our shooting was pretty awful. 37.3% overall and 26.1% from 3. 45% of our attempts from 3....

-We allowed 8 ORebs on 34 misses (23.6%). Seems slightly higher than typical. But while watching, it seemed much worse.

- opponents had 7 steals and 4 blocks, while we had FOURTEEN steals and 3 blocks. 14 of the opposing 17 turnovers were due to a steal by us. Thats not too common. Alot of times it's passes out of bounds, travel, offensive fouls, etc. I dont expect that we'll keep those defensive stats up. I think Blocks will be few and far between for this team but maybe the steals will be a strength.

- 31 Opponent fouls vs 15 for us. That was the game right there. We took 28 more FTAs and made 23 more. They had 3 guys foul out, so that let us exploit the end of their bench.

- Back to our shooting. You dont see alot of fouls on 3pt attempts, and we took alot of those. But we got fouled 31 times on 28 2-pt attempts. So they dont count an attempt if you get fouled and it's a miss, so i suppose we actually were alot more effective "shooting 2's" when you factor in the 41 FTAs we had. You need to consider that some of those came in a non-shooting situation during the Bonus and Double Bonus. But overall, Attacking the basket and interior scoring seemed difficult to stop without them fouling us.

- Conwell took 10 of our 23 3PA, and made 5 of our 6. Some of those seemed forced. I'd like to see slightly fewer 3 Attempts, and spread out a little more among fewer guys. Hunter and Hugley should have a red light. Free a yellow light. But we need more attempts from McKnight (2), Foster (3), and Maddox (1). I feel like we may win a game or 2 this year just due to shooting the lights out. But I think we could take 1 or 2 bad losses on those nights that the rim had a lid on it from deep.

- 17 assists on 19 makes. Very good and surprising. Wonder how many good passes led to fouls and FTs that would have other wise been an assist if it was a make?

- as individuals, Free, Conwell and McKnight all had pretty good games.

- Swain was interesting. Scored 14 and had 9 FTAs. And it looks like most of his damage is going to the rim. Didnt expect 5 assist. But I didnt expect 2 rebounds and 4 turnovers either. He should be a "scraps" guy on offense and a disruptor on defense. Overall, solid game with several things that he did well, but also a few areas needing some cleanup / improvement.

- Foster was quiet. He delivered on his rebounding (6), but was 0-5 from the field. I expected a few more attempts and obviously some makes. 1 assist?

- Hugley was quiet and played only 6 minutes. He did very little in the Dayton exhibition. That didnt concern me. But we need him to be a 18-20 minutes per game guy that is a space eater and inside scorer. Havent seen that potential yet.

- Green was gunning and playing fast. Exaqctly what i expected. Still high on his potential. If he can hit 40% from 3, he'll be instant offense.

- maddux had 11 minutes and didnt score? 2 rebs, 1 ast, 1 stl, 1 TO, 1 Foul. I viewed Maddux and Conwell and fairly "equal" in terms of their potential impact. Conwell won this round 10-8. Need maddux to be #3 scorer for thsi team.

- hunter did very little. Need more, period. I get the circumstances, but hes gotta be the guy we saw 2 years ago, and not the one we saw 3 years ago.

Overall, if we play like that against a BE opponent, we probably lose 90% of the time. i dont think a BE team is going to foul us nearly that much and they wont turn the ball over as easily. Get this one behind us and lets hope we see a few more guys step up in the next one.

[Jumpin_Jamal_Forever]

I watched the game and well...the previous comments here sum up that experience. But I always like to analyze the box score as well.

-Held STU to 41.4% shooting overall. Although we allowed 10 made 3's on 23 attempts (43.5%), that means we held them to 40% from 2 (14 of 35).

- Our shooting was pretty awful. 37.3% overall and 26.1% from 3. 45% of our attempts from 3....

-We allowed 8 ORebs on 34 misses (23.6%). Seems slightly higher than typical. But while watching, it seemed much worse.

- opponents had 7 steals and 4 blocks, while we had FOURTEEN steals and 3 blocks. 14 of the opposing 17 turnovers were due to a steal by us. Thats not too common. Alot of times it's passes out of bounds, travel, offensive fouls, etc. I dont expect that we'll keep those defensive stats up. I think Blocks will be few and far between for this team but maybe the steals will be a strength.

- 31 Opponent fouls vs 15 for us. That was the game right there. We took 28 more FTAs and made 23 more. They had 3 guys foul out, so that let us exploit the end of their bench.

- Back to our shooting. You dont see alot of fouls on 3pt attempts, and we took alot of those. But we got fouled 31 times on 28 2-pt attempts. So they dont count an attempt if you get fouled and it's a miss, so i suppose we actually were alot more effective "shooting 2's" when you factor in the 41 FTAs we had. You need to consider that some of those came in a non-shooting situation during the Bonus and Double Bonus. But overall, Attacking the basket and interior scoring seemed difficult to stop without them fouling us.

- Conwell took 10 of our 23 3PA, and made 5 of our 6. Some of those seemed forced. I'd like to see slightly fewer 3 Attempts, and spread out a little more among fewer guys. Hunter and Hugley should have a red light. Free a yellow light. But we need more attempts from McKnight (2), Foster (3), and Maddox (1). I feel like we may win a game or 2 this year just due to shooting the lights out. But I think we could take 1 or 2 bad losses on those nights that the rim had a lid on it from deep.

- 17 assists on 19 makes. Very good and surprising. Wonder how many good passes led to fouls and FTs that would have other wise been an assist if it was a make?

- as individuals, Free, Conwell and McKnight all had pretty good games.

- Swain was interesting. Scored 14 and had 9 FTAs. And it looks like most of his damage is going to the rim. Didnt expect 5 assist. But I didnt expect 2 rebounds and 4 turnovers either. He should be a "scraps" guy on offense and a disruptor on defense. Overall, solid game with several things that he did well, but also a few areas needing some cleanup / improvement.

- Foster was quiet. He delivered on his rebounding (6), but was 0-5 from the field. I expected a few more attempts and obviously some makes. 1 assist?

- Hugley was quiet and played only 6 minutes. He did very little in the Dayton exhibition. That didnt concern me. But we need him to be a 18-20 minutes per game guy that is a space eater and inside scorer. Havent seen that potential yet.

- Green was gunning and playing fast. Exaqctly what i expected. Still high on his potential. If he can hit 40% from 3, he'll be instant offense.

- maddux had 11 minutes and didnt score? 2 rebs, 1 ast, 1 stl, 1 TO, 1 Foul. I viewed Maddux and Conwell and fairly "equal" in terms of their potential impact. Conwell won this round 10-8. Need maddux to be #3 scorer for thsi team.

- hunter did very little. Need more, period. I get the circumstances, but hes gotta be the guy we saw 2 years ago, and not the one we saw 3 years ago.

Overall, if we play like that against a BE opponent, we probably lose 90% of the time. i dont think a BE team is going to foul us nearly that much and they wont turn the ball over as easily. Get this one behind us and lets hope we see a few more guys step up in the next one.

100% on this.

[bleedXblue]

It's one game with a bunch of guys who haven't played with each other. Geesh. I liked Swain he looked much more comfortable. Defensive rebounding is going to be a problem...but we knew that. FT shooting was really good. Onto the next one......

[Xville]

It's one game with a bunch of guys who haven't played with each other. Geesh. I liked Swain he looked much more comfortable. Defensive rebounding is going to be a problem...but we knew that. FT shooting was really good. Onto the next one......

That’s not a valid excuse. Most p5 teams have players that have never played together. This isn’t last year with a bunch of really young guys and intl players. Some looked great like Louisville, St. John’s and uk. Others like x and most of the big East looked like crap. I don’t think x ever shoots that bad again this year, and plenty of time to fix things. However there are pretty glaring problems that I’m not sure gets fixed and will be an issue against big East and other p5 opponents

[drudy23]

I watched the game and well...the previous comments here sum up that experience. But I always like to analyze the box score as well.

-Held STU to 41.4% shooting overall. Although we allowed 10 made 3's on 23 attempts (43.5%), that means we held them to 40% from 2 (14 of 35).

- Our shooting was pretty awful. 37.3% overall and 26.1% from 3. 45% of our attempts from 3....

-We allowed 8 ORebs on 34 misses (23.6%). Seems slightly higher than typical. But while watching, it seemed much worse.

- opponents had 7 steals and 4 blocks, while we had FOURTEEN steals and 3 blocks. 14 of the opposing 17 turnovers were due to a steal by us. Thats not too common. Alot of times it's passes out of bounds, travel, offensive fouls, etc. I dont expect that we'll keep those defensive stats up. I think Blocks will be few and far between for this team but maybe the steals will be a strength.

- 31 Opponent fouls vs 15 for us. That was the game right there. We took 28 more FTAs and made 23 more. They had 3 guys foul out, so that let us exploit the end of their bench.

- Back to our shooting. You dont see alot of fouls on 3pt attempts, and we took alot of those. But we got fouled 31 times on 28 2-pt attempts. So they dont count an attempt if you get fouled and it's a miss, so i suppose we actually were alot more effective "shooting 2's" when you factor in the 41 FTAs we had. You need to consider that some of those came in a non-shooting situation during the Bonus and Double Bonus. But overall, Attacking the basket and interior scoring seemed difficult to stop without them fouling us.

- Conwell took 10 of our 23 3PA, and made 5 of our 6. Some of those seemed forced. I'd like to see slightly fewer 3 Attempts, and spread out a little more among fewer guys. Hunter and Hugley should have a red light. Free a yellow light. But we need more attempts from McKnight (2), Foster (3), and Maddox (1). I feel like we may win a game or 2 this year just due to shooting the lights out. But I think we could take 1 or 2 bad losses on those nights that the rim had a lid on it from deep.

- 17 assists on 19 makes. Very good and surprising. Wonder how many good passes led to fouls and FTs that would have other wise been an assist if it was a make?

- as individuals, Free, Conwell and McKnight all had pretty good games.

- Swain was interesting. Scored 14 and had 9 FTAs. And it looks like most of his damage is going to the rim. Didnt expect 5 assist. But I didnt expect 2 rebounds and 4 turnovers either. He should be a "scraps" guy on offense and a disruptor on defense. Overall, solid game with several things that he did well, but also a few areas needing some cleanup / improvement.

- Foster was quiet. He delivered on his rebounding (6), but was 0-5 from the field. I expected a few more attempts and obviously some makes. 1 assist?

- Hugley was quiet and played only 6 minutes. He did very little in the Dayton exhibition. That didnt concern me. But we need him to be a 18-20 minutes per game guy that is a space eater and inside scorer. Havent seen that potential yet.

- Green was gunning and playing fast. Exaqctly what i expected. Still high on his potential. If he can hit 40% from 3, he'll be instant offense.

- maddux had 11 minutes and didnt score? 2 rebs, 1 ast, 1 stl, 1 TO, 1 Foul. I viewed Maddux and Conwell and fairly "equal" in terms of their potential impact. Conwell won this round 10-8. Need maddux to be #3 scorer for thsi team.

- hunter did very little. Need more, period. I get the circumstances, but hes gotta be the guy we saw 2 years ago, and not the one we saw 3 years ago.

Overall, if we play like that against a BE opponent, we probably lose 90% of the time. i dont think a BE team is going to foul us nearly that much and they wont turn the ball over as easily. Get this one behind us and lets hope we see a few more guys step up in the next one.

Mostly agree, but a few responses:

1) Hunter was pretty good on defense. He literally played the best defense against the PG who had 20+ points. He shouldn't have to score a bunch of points on this team. He's a true valuable role player in every sense of the word.
2) Green is not patient enough. He hasn't shown his ability to shoot 40%+ because he's not patient enough to get open looks. If he gets open looks, he will shoot close to 50%. He rushed and forced multiple shots.
3) If we're comparing Maddox to Conwell, we're setting up Maddox for disappointment. Maddox can be a valuable member of this team, but he's not Conwell.

Game One - not concerned mostly because TSU played somewhat of a gimmick defense (that we didn't execute against), but I will admit, they played hard and scrappy. It was a good sign we only had 9 TOs against a team like that. In games like this, they have to SLOW DOWN and establish Free to open up the perimeter. I know they always want to play fast, but you have to be able to execute in these rock fight type of games.