Preview: Xavier at George Washington

**Muskie** · 01-16-2008, 06:45 PM

Xavier (14-3) vs. George Washington (5-6)
Charles E. Smith Center (Washington D.C.)
Saturday, January 19, 2008
8:00 p.m. EST on the Fox Sports Ohio and heard on 700 WLW

The Setting:
Xavier travels to the Nation's Capital to take on the Colonials at the Charles E. Smith Center, which seats approximately 5,000.

Last Game:
Xavier struggled with Temple before losing in Philadelphia. GW traveled to Fordham where they fell 66-53.

Previous Meeting:
Xavier and GW last met on February, 10 2007. Stanley Burrell scored 19 points and Brandon Cole added 16 points (a career high) to propel Xavier to a 87-58 win. The Xavier victory snapped GW's 24 home game winning streak.

Keys to the Game:
GW is not far removed from holding conference mate Saint Louis under 30 points at the Smith Center. It's hard to believe GW will be as fortunate against X. However, X must play good perimeter defense and keep GW's Witherspoon from distributing the ball to his teammates. X must also forget the awful offensive game played against Temple and return to what worked for them when closing out the out of conference slate.

The X-Factor:
Xavier must end it's love affair with the 3 when they don't fall. Too many times they've continued to fire away, leaving Josh Duncan and C.J. Anderson open down low.

**Stonebreaker** · 01-18-2008, 05:02 PM

They definitely need to work the ball inside more. If anything, it makes the defense work, and helps get open shots inside and out.

xuwin · 01-18-2008, 05:06 PM

I'll take X by 15, but, I think Xavier has to count on the three with the inside scorers that they have. Xavier had several good inside feeds against Temple, but, they had every one of them blocked. I don't know why a team with a big shot blocker inside can't block all of CJ's shots because they know what his range is.