Gritty, not pretty. I know that was Zach Freemantle’s thing last year, but that was the only way Xavier was going to win this game. Just three days after being on the receiving end of the program’s worst beating in Cintas Center history, the Muskies bounced back at Georgetown to keep the season something close […]
Gritty, not pretty.
I know that was Zach Freemantle’s thing last year, but that was the only way Xavier was going to win this game. Just three days after being on the receiving end of the program’s worst beating in Cintas Center history, the Muskies bounced back at Georgetown to keep the season something close to alive.
The check engine light started flashing before the first media timeout, when Tre Carroll (22/8/4) was called for his second foul. The officiating was a subject of much consternation on Twitter. Like most things on social media, it was overblown, but there was certainly an element of truth to the argument that the Muskies were on the receiving end of a home whistle. Xavier was +2 with Carroll on the floor in the first half and -7 without him.
The guy keeping the whole show afloat was Malik Messina-Moore (14/1/1), who had 12 of his 14 before the half. He dropped 6 points in the last 5 minutes of the half to keep the Muskies within touching distance after they had gone down by 10 and seemed to be on their way to another humiliating conference loss. Thanks to a modest 13-8 close to the half, X went into the locker room down just 5.
Xavier kept battling back, but it looked like Malik Mack (21/2/3) was once again going carry his team to victory against the Muskies. A year after ripping off 26/2/3 in this fixture, he had an answer for everything Xavier did early in the second half. The visitors had an incandescent 17-point first war, but Mack had 7 of his own to keep the game tied at the U16. When he stuck back-to-back bombs out of the break – answered only by a Roddie Anderson III (14/6/4) fadeaway – Georgetown stretched the lead back to 5 and it was gut check time for our boys.
It started slowly, in the form of a pair of made FTs from Pape N’Diaye (6/4/0), whose stat line belies how steadying his influence felt when he was on the floor. Tre Carroll, who Georgetown had no answer for when he wasn’t benched due to foul trouble, knocked in a couple of baskets and a back cut and slam by Isaiah Walker (2/1/0) gave Xavier a narrow lead at 62-61 with 9 and change to play.
The Muskies had a chance to pull away after getting three consecutive stops, but they only turned them into 3 consecutive turnovers on the other end, and 5 straight Georgetown points from former Xavier recruiting target Julius Halaifonua (19/2/0) put the Hoyas up 66-64 with 6 minutes to play.
Malik Messina-Moore answered with a clutch jumper, his only bucket of the second half. The teams exchanged turnovers, Halaifonua split a pair of FTs, and Jovan Milicevic (9/8/3) stuck a three from the corner to send the game into the final media timeout with a memetastic 69-67 lead for Xavier showing on the scoreboard.
The final four-minute war was a microcosm of the game, with Georgetown getting plenty of opportunities from the line and Xavier playing through their own miscues. The Hoyas shot 2-6/0-2/6-12, with that 6-12 from the line part of a ghastly 25-43 from the charity stripe on the night. Xavier played some really ugly offense but got huge iso-ball jumpers from Anderson III and Filip Borovicanin (11/13/4, 6 TO) to do just enough to get the game to 80-77 with 3 seconds left and Georgetown at the line.
The Hoya in question was sophomore big Seal Diouf, the man to whom Filip Borovicanin had gifted his 5th foul after Diouf had grabbed the rebound on a missed Jovan Milicevic free throw. Borovicanin did that because Diouf is a deep bench player with little clutch experience and was just 2-4 from the line heading into the game. Big Fil looked like a basketball genius as Diouf missed them both, but the second board bounced out and found Malik Mack in the corner. His game-tying attempt was shot almost directly in line with the TV camera and looked good the whole way, but he just didn’t quite have the lift he needed, and Tre Carroll secured the board and the game for Xavier.
That was, to put it charitably, one of the ugliest basketball games you’re ever likely to see at this level. Georgetown fans will rightly point to the team’s 25-43 (58.1%) showing from the free throw line as the reason they lost this game. Xavier answered them with 14 turnovers and a 19.7% TO rate, and you’d be straining credulity if you called many of those miscues forced. The Muskies were just as confused and out of sorts at times today as they were to start the season. They also committed – or at least were called for – 27 fouls, as their game never adjusted to the whistles from the officials.
At the horn though, only one stat matters. Xavier had 80 points to Georgetown’s 77, and they’ll leave the nation’s capital with a win they desperately needed to make the rest of the season less of a trudge.
Category: General Sports
