I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about this game not that long ago. Xavier staggered out of the gate like… well, like a group of guys that had never played together before. They were lost, disjointed, and ultimately run off their own court by Santa Clara in what appeared to be an early nadir for the Richard Pitino Era. Eleven days in and down 40 spots in the KenPom, it was shaping up to be a pretty gruesome season at Cintas.
Then a couple of bright spots appeared. Xavier looked awful but not hopeless at Iowa. They followed that up with a perfunctory beating of Old Dominion and a successful trip to Charleston. Then they came home and beat the brakes off of a couple more low-major teams in buy games that actually looked bought.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, Santa Clara kept winning. The team that started 105th in the KenPom now sits at 51st, a single bucket from being undefeated on the year. What looked at the time like a sign of how bad X is might have actually just been the first indication of how good Santa Clara is.
For those inclined towards hope, the signs that Xavier is not entirely dead and buried this year are evident.
The same is more difficult to say for their crosstown rivals. Wes Miller – sitting at 1-3 in Crosstown Shootouts and still seeking his first NCAA Tournament win (or even appearance at UC) – was reported by one of the AI bots that writes for once illustrious publication Sports Illustrated to be joking that he might as well start looking for real estate in Hilton Head if he doesn’t win this game. Half a decade into his tenure at UC, his seat is starting to perceptibly warm.
The Bearcats have slogged to a series of unimpressive results so far this year. Their home win over Dayton is clinging to the bottom of Q2 and it is by far their best result of the season. Their two losses this season will be equally damning when Selection Sunday arrives, with Louisville walking away from them in the second half and Eastern Michigan using a 17-1 first half run to hand UC a brutal Q4 loss.
Advertisement
Xavier is coalescing right as UC comes apart at the seams. X was 71 spots behind the Bearcats in the KenPom on November 18; heading into this game, the gap is 11. With basketball’s best rivalry set to be contested for the 93rd time, both teams have it all to play for.
Team fingerprint
When UC is going well this year, it’s on the back of a ferocious defense. They’re 4th in the nation in adjusted efficiency. They do it by forcing a ton of turnovers and smothering opponents inside the arc, ranking inside the top 10 in TO rate and defensive two-point percentage. They’re very good on the defensive glass. Like most pressure teams, they can be a bit prone to foul trouble. They’re also exceptionally permissive in defending the arc, with teams getting up more than 44% of their shots from deep.
On offense, it’s a bit more of a mixed bag. Actually, that’s too charitable: they’re bad. They’re 219th in the nation, largely because they take almost half their shots from deep despite connecting at a 31.8% clip. That puts them exactly average in EFG%, which – combined with poor offensive rebounding and awful ball security – means they struggle to put points on the board. The only of the four factors in which they’re within the top 100 is free throw rate, and they undermine that by shooting a nauseating 64.6% from the line as a team. They’re going to try to play really fast, though what the rush to get more shots up could possibly be is anyone’s guess.
Advertisement
Players
Starters
|
|
Starting matchups |
|
|---|---|---|
|
Kerr Kriisa |
Point Guard |
All Wright |
|
Senior |
Class |
Sophomore |
|
6’3″, 185 |
Measurements |
6’3″, 190 |
|
8.1/2.1/4.8 |
Game line |
11.3/1.8/2.2 |
|
36.2/34.6/83.3 |
Shooting line |
47.4/50/83.3 |
|
|
Stylistically, Kriisa has been what he’s always been this year. He distributes a lot, turns the ball over a lot, shoots a lot of threes, and rarely shoots from two point range or the free throw line. His numbers this year so far match his numbers from 2023 at Arizona save for a higher conversion rate from 2 point range and a lower rate of shooting free throws. When he gets hot, which he was last time out against Tarleton State, he can be a tough matchup but his longstanding habit of throwing the ball to the wrong team on occasion remains. |
|
|
Day Day Thomas |
Shooting Guard |
Malik Messina-Moore |
|
Senior |
Class |
Senior |
|
6’1″, 190 |
Measurements |
6’5″, 200 |
|
13.8/3.9/4.4 |
Game line |
7.1/3/4.1 |
|
38.5/50/92.9 |
Shooting line |
30.5/26.7/71.4 |
|
|
With the arrival of Kriisa, Thomas has moved to playing off the ball more often and has shot extremely well from three this season. He still likes to get to the rim, where he has converted under 30% of his attempts, and work in the midrange, where he’s 1-13 so far. He is fairly good at getting himself to the free throw line and is extremely good at making that count. He has also had a decline in steals this season, but is blocking more shots and has more or less retained his value as a defender. |
|
|
Shon Abaev |
Small Forward |
Tre Carroll |
|
Freshman |
Class |
Senior |
|
6’8″, 210 |
Measurements |
6’8″, 235 |
|
11.5/4.3/1.4 |
Game line |
15.9/5.4/2.9 |
|
37.8/24.5/68 |
Shooting line |
46.1/39.5/74.1 |
|
|
This guy is going to get his shots up, leading the team in field goal attempts despite playing the 5th most minutes. He’s extremely effective when he gets to the rim (72%) but much less so from three, which is where he shoots from most often. He does a decent job on the boards, fouls pretty frequently, and isn’t great from the line. In UC’s games against Dayton and Louisville, he had 26 points on 10-21 from the floor and 1 assist to 5 turnovers, all adding up to a ORTG somewhere in the high 70’s depending on your preferred metric. |
|
|
Baba Miller |
Power Forward |
Filip Borovicanin |
|
Senior |
Class |
Senior |
|
6’11”, 225 |
Measurements |
6’9″, 227 |
|
14.2/10.2/1.7 |
Game line |
8.1/7.6/3.6 |
|
64.6/12.5/62.9 |
Shooting line |
44.9/17.4/87.5 |
|
|
Miller has been a huge difference maker on defense for the Bearcats in addition to being the team’s leading scorer. He does his best work in the paint, although he’s shooting 50% on midrange jumpers this season, and steps out for the occaisonal three, which he ususally misses. Despite scoring a fairly efficient 14 points per game, he’s almost twice as valuable on defense as he is offense according to Bart Torvik because of his 30% defensive rebounding rate and 8.7% block rate. It should be noted that he has been battling a hip inury since the Louisville game which kept him out for two games, but he did play 30 minutes against Tarleton State and posted a 13 point 11 rebound double-double. |
|
|
Moustapha Thiam |
Center |
Jovan Milicevic |
|
Sophomore |
Class |
Sophomore |
|
7’2″, 250 |
Measurements |
6’10”, 241 |
|
9.9/6.9/0.5 |
Game line |
12.6/4/1.1 |
|
55.4/10/48.5 |
Shooting line |
42/44.2/69.6 |
|
|
Thiam is probably more defensively minded than Miller, but doesn’t have quite as big of an impact for a couple of reasons, namely that he doesn’t rebound quite as well and he fouls twice as often. Still, he is a tenacious shot blocker and uses his length to generate a lot of steals for a center as well. On offense, he is really effective at the rim, but his efficiency numbers are drug way down by an astronomical turnover rate and a hideous 48% from the free throw line. |
|
Reserves
Wes Miller gets a solid amount of minutes from his bench, 118th in the nation, and has a couple of key veteran players to call on. The first man off the bench is guard Sencire Harris, who spends a majority of his minutes filling in for Thomas or Abaev off the ball. He is a menace on defense, where he leads the team in steals, and converts 67% of his shots rim on offense, although he’s just 5-25 on jumpers. Tyler McKinley is a freshman backup big man and does a lot of the things associated with freshmen backup big men like foul and turn the ball over a lot. He plays about 15 minutes a game and his season high in scoring is 4, but it is more down to a miniscule usage rate than him being ineffective. Jalen Celestine is a wing who is used almost exclusively as a catch and shoot threat on offense. He’s only making 29% of his threes this season, but he is a career 37% shooter on 388 attempts behind the arc, so his track record suggests he’ll get hot sooner or later. Jordi Rodriguez will come off the bench to soak up minutes for Miller and is another guy who shoots almost all of his shots from three but has started the season cold. The last player to note is Keyshuan Tillery, a freshman who backs up Kriisa and saw limited action against UD and Louisville, probably because of his 53.1 turnover rate in those games.
Advertisement
Three questions
-Are UC paper tigers? The Bearcats have a superficially impressive record and some gaudy defensive numbers, but consider the competition. KenPom gives them the 353rd-toughest schedule so far, which is near as makes no difference the worst in the nation. Their defensive turnover numbers plummet against good competition, and they have allowed a parade of shooters to the free throw line in both of their losses. Sure they’ve roughed up a lot of lower-level teams and taken advantage of an awful shooting night by Dayton, but they’ve certainly done less than impress when the competition has been on equal footing.
-Will momentum win out? Xavier is maybe hitting a stride, sitting 43rd in the nation since November 17th according to Bart Torvik of Bart Torvik dot com. In that same time span, Cincinnati is a dismal 154th, so far down I thought surely I had missed them while I was scrolling. X has done it by avoiding turnovers, raining threes, and sealing off the defensive glass. The Bearcats have been disinterested in offensive rebounding and flat out apathetic regarding guarding the arc, but they’ve still forced turnovers at a high clip despite going 2-2 over the period in question. If the trend lines continue, the Muskies are sitting pretty.
-What will matter? You can look at the numbers and see potential advantages for either team. Xavier loves to launch threes and UC doesn’t defend the arc well; maybe that will be decisive. On the other hand, UC is above-average in two-point shooting and I’m fairly sure I could get a bucket or two inside the arc against Xavier’s defense (not really); will the Bearcats have a plan to exploit that? What this question is really asking is, which coaching staff do you believe in to put its players in position to succeed? I know what my answer is, but you never know when the chips are down in the Shootout.
Advertisement
Three keys
-Start when the game does. The Shootout is absolutely a mental and emotional battle. Not to the same extent it’s a physical one, but the crowd and the vibe definitely take center stage in rivalry games. If Xavier comes out flat or commits a handful of stupid turnovers before the first media timeout, they’ll be forfeiting the impetus and giving UC an unearned foothold in the game. Win the tip, run your best sets early, at the very least make it tough sledding for the Bearcats from the jump. Nobody in Cintas wants to hit that first media timeout down 11-4.
-Make it rain. It’s so obvious that it barely needs to be said, but Xavier’s advantage is on the arc offensively. X has four legitimate high-volume threats from deep on the roster, and even if they didn’t, you have to go back at least before the KenPom era before you’ll find a Xavier team this bad from inside the arc. UC defends twos well and X is awful at scoring them; chuck it from the cheap seats and let their shot blockers languish in the paint.
-Get 10 fouls out of Anthony Robinson and Pape N’Diaye. I know this is cynical, but this is a results business. Day Day Thomas is good at free throws, but the rest of the UC players who get to the line regularly are not, and that’s especially true of Thiam and Miller, who are a combined 38-68 (55.9%) from the line and 60-86 (69.8%) from two. Xavier needs Borovicanin, Milicevic, and Carroll to stay out of foul trouble, but Robinson and N’Diaye should be challenging everything around the rim hard and making UC earn their points at the stripe.
