NCAA Tournament S16 Game Thread: Xavier v Texas (3/24/2023)

[Masterofreality]

The Xavier alumni pregame event starts at 3pm on Friday. Some of our alums (unfortunately not me!) are going to be some drunked up MFers come 8:45 Friday night.

What? You & I wouldn’t be walking the streets of KC (ala Boston) finding random Bourbon Bars and downing their wares pregame like before???

[GoMuskies]

What? You & I wouldn’t be walking the streets of KC (ala Boston) finding random Bourbon Bars and downing their wares pregame like before???

Oh, I would be, but I have to go to a gymnastics meet in Wichita at 3pm. And I'm bringing my 15 year-old son. He was 18 months old and home with his mom when we were drinking it up at Clarke's in Boston.

[Masterofreality]

Oh, I would be, but I have to go to a gymnastics meet in Wichita at 3pm. And I'm bringing my 15 year-old son. He was 18 months old and home with his mom when we were drinking it up at Clarke's in Boston.

YIKES A!!! This years thing is just going too damn fast!!!

[X-band '01]

I originally had tickets for that ill-fated regional in Boston but had to back out of that due to a last-second work commitment.

That's not gonna happen this time around. This will be the 5th (and hopefully 6th) time I'll be seeing Xavier outside of Cintas this year.

[noteggs]

Strange, why are we having a game thread so late in the season?

Another NIT run?

As usual wrong answers only…

[X-band '01]

You can go to Utah Valley for your NIT fix now.

[XUGRAD80]

The lady musketeers are have a great season aren’t they!? Can’t believe they’ve made it this far!

[Xavier]

As soon as the bracket came out- I was instantly disappointed we got Texas as our two seed. When they pulled away from Penn state I was again disappointed, not thinking we stood much of a chance. But I started to think about it. Xavier shouldn’t be overwhelmed by Texas. Maybe the big 12 was slightly overrated? I know Texas is great but-

Look at UCONN. They are arguably the best team in the country. They best Alabama by 15. They are actually higher on KenPom than Texas (albeit by 1). I was concerned about Texas and all the guys they have that can go off at any point. But I think Creighton has more weapons. All this is to say- we have beaten arguably better teams and just as good of offenses.

The main difference is Texas loves to operate and score in the midrange where I think X struggles the most on defense. And we did beat Uconn with Freemantle (I would actually love our chances vs Texas with Freemantle). I still think the most likely scenario is we see a level of toughness we haven’t seen all year and shows us the level we need to get to in order to be a F4 team

[D-West & PO-Z]

As soon as the bracket came out- I was instantly disappointed we got Texas as our two seed. When they pulled away from Penn state I was again disappointed, not thinking we stood much of a chance. But I started to think about it. Xavier shouldn’t be overwhelmed by Texas. Maybe the big 12 was slightly overrated? I know Texas is great but-

Look at UCONN. They are arguably the best team in the country. They best Alabama by 15. They are actually higher on KenPom than Texas (albeit by 1). I was concerned about Texas and all the guys they have that can go off at any point. But I think Creighton has more weapons. All this is to say- we have beaten arguably better teams and just as good of offenses.

The main difference is Texas loves to operate and score in the midrange where I think X struggles the most on defense. And we did beat Uconn with Freemantle (I would actually love our chances vs Texas with Freemantle)

We did have Free @UConn but he fouled out and only played 21 mins. Hunter had more mins and points that game.

I agree, Texas seems tough, but UConn and Creighton are really tough too and X went 4-1 against them.

Will need our best defensive effort to win.

[Chermy23]

On a very important note. Does anyone know if TMobile arena will be selling beer?