So, Where the Hell are We?

[Masterofreality]

Well, we all know that Holiday Tournaments for this program are disasters, mostly. But we also know that redemption can come from disasters. At the Old Spice, Jordan Crawford didn't see a shot he didn't like and XU stunk. End result= Sweet 16. Hawaii was a Horriffic mess with coaching brain cramps. End result = Sweet 16. So, it's not unreasonable to expect that there will be vast improvement. But with these players, is there enough upside to archive such improvement? Well, let's analyze along with what I think their roles should be.

-Dee Davis: Honestly, WTF was that exhibition in Atlantis? That was not the experienced PG that this team needed. Lousy decisions, a turnover machine, and not a consistent shooting threat. Any upside?: Well, he can't be any worse, but I believe he is what he is. His Role: Backup PG.
-Brandon Randolph: Love the kid. Has some offensive potential, but has got to be able to take and make jump shots against a zone. All kinds of upside. His Role: Start the kid and let him learn. I'd rather live with his mistakes than to see what I saw from Dee Davis last weekend against good competition.
-Myles Davis: Love the kid. One of only two reliable outside shooters on this team- and that is a problem. Defense will get better. All kinds of upside. His Role: Start the kid at 2 and leave him there except for subs when you move Semaj there.
-Semaj: Of course we love him. Still has all kinds of upside for his shot, frees and defense. The free throws have now become a chronic problem, and I'm thinking it's mechanical, not mental. How about spreading the feet a bit on the stance for better balance? The deal is, however that this team has a real hole at the 3 and Semaj could fill it. He would be a matchup nightmare and is quick enough to guard most small forwards. His Role: Play him at the 3 and switch to the 2 on subbing.
-Justin Martin: Uh, no remaining upside. But when he plays well, like against Iowa for a while, this team flourishes. Just goes to show how important the 3 is to your offense. Cannot EVER make a big 3 when you need one and cannot stay focused. Was schooled by Roy Marble of Iowa. Maybe the most frustrating player I have ever seen at X. His Role: Sub 3 but would rather see Semaj in there mostly.
-James Farr: Huge upside. I want to see a lot of Jimmy Farr. The only other semi-reliable outside shooter this team has. Long and is getting better on D. I want to see him out there a lot playing and learning. His Role: Early sub at 4 with a LOT of minutes especially if teams zone up.
-I Phillmore: No remaining upside. He is who he is. Still frustrating how weak he is with the ball for as strong as he seems to be. Was muscled around badly by Tennessee and USC. Cannot, or won't shoot outside of 5 feet. His Role: Because of his experience, you have to start him, but get Jimmy Farr in early and move Phillmore to the 5 on occasion.
-Jalen Reynolds: I'm hoping upside and that this is only rust, but played horrifically in the Bahamas against good competition. Athletic, but have not seen any offensive potential outside of 5 feet. He'd better get better rebounding and on defense. His Role: Some minutes at the 5 and some at the 4 depending on matchups but I sure hope for more.
-Matt Stainbrook: I love the kid and he is what he was when I saw him at St. Eds. But I also saw him make numerous mid-range jumpers from 15 feet that we haven't seen so far at X so there is some upside. However, please Matt. STOP WHINING and flapping your arms like a Condor, even when the foul call is questionable. Refs don't like the body language. His Role: Starting Center, of course and play as many minutes as he can.
-Eric Stenger: Did we really miss him as much as we did in Atlantis? He is what he is, but we could have used his defense against Tennessee and USC. His Role: Limited minutes interior defensive specialist.
-Kamall Richards: No where until he learns to work harder. Nothing else to say. His Role: Bench until he gets it.
-Landon Amos. See Eric Stenger except on the perimeter. May have really helped defend Marble. His Role: Same as Stenger on the perimeter.

Now, Chris Mack. I cannot blame the Iowa game on CMack. Without your best player for crunch time, you were still a missed bunny by Stainbrook from beating a very, very good team. Also, can't blame Tennessee on him. Iowa hangover and a team with revenge on it's mind. USC? Well, while USC shot way the hell over their heads by 10 percentage points higher on 3's and 20 percentage points on all shots, BUT, Xavier took way too long to do something to knock them out of their rhythm. We have depth. Why wait until you're 21 points down before starting to press? There were also numerous times when it was obvious that you needed shooters out there when neither Farr or Myles were in. C'mon.

So, final analysis. This team needs a 3, and Justin Martin is not the answer. The staff knows it and that's why we have both Abell and Blueitt coming next year. That is also why Semaj should play the 3 because you need consistent offense there. This team also needs better PG play and a consistent outside shooting guard. That is why I'd rather see Myles and Brandon get lots of minutes. There will be pains, but the long term will be better than the alternative. Bottom line. We all have to hope that the underclassmen are what the staff saw when they recruited them. This team will go where Myles, James, Brandon and Jalen can pull them up to. If they develop, and Semaj figures out his frees, things can still be special.

This staff has some work to do.

[GuyFawkes38]

The good thing is that we did lose to 2 really solid teams that will not be considered by the Selection Committee as "bad" losses. And who knows, maybe USC can also be considered in that group.

It is a young team. I think that Dee might have hit his ceiling last year. But Randolph should improve, which would be huge.

[xsteve1]

As for Dee and JMart I just don't think they love the game of basketball and may be burned out. Some IU fans questioned Dee's love for the game coming out of HS. Philmore is just so limited athletically as is Stainbrook but Stainbrook plays within himself and is a good passer, can't have those guys on the court at the same time. This season will come down to the development of Reynolds, Randolph and Farr.

[X-ROX]

I'd like to know why we didn't see any of Richards this tourney,especially against Iowa.

[paulxu]

Two weeks ago: this team is going places, Semaj to NBA, deep bench unlike last year, playing great team ball, blah, blah, blah.

Today: this team sucks, Semaj can't hit a barn, no depth, bench is worthless, blah, blah, blah.

I'm confused.

[gladdenguy]

Competition had a lot to do with that Paul.
Oh and you don't play every game at home. Mack has lost a ton away from home the last 2 years.
And 37-30 after the brawl. That is terrible.
Of course one of the spots is the 3 spot where we absolutely suck and we know who would be playing at that spot. Tough to blame Mack for that.

[Muskie]

Isn't it a little convenient to once again bring in Dez Wells? What if he didn't play well with Semaj for instance? We will never know.

He's averaging 12.9 points for Maryland. He's not superman.

[GoMuskies]

Isn't it a little convenient to once again bring in Dez Wells? What if he didn't play well with Semaj for instance? We will never know.

I'd sure like to take my chances. Oh well. Equivalent talent will finally arrive next fall.

[DC Muskie]

Isn't it a little convenient to once again bring in Dez Wells? What if he didn't play well with Semaj for instance? We will never know.

He's averaging 12.9 points for Maryland. He's not superman.

Of course Maryland's best win right now is Providence.

[Xaveriana]

As usual MOR I totally agree, especially with the Stainbrook bitching comment. As a former Official Scorer for 16 years for a local D1 Junior College, I've seen up close how officials react to being shown up. You don't want that attention. Stainbrook's reactions remind me of our former, talented, bad attitude guard that ended up with the raccoon. He never committed a foul.

MACK BASHING ALERT!!! Please skip if you believe he walks on water.
Now on to Mack. Graduated high school the same year as Mack from a rival GCL school. Went to Xavier with him. So, I have seen his behavior for some time. He is a great recruiter, well spoken, and truly loves Xavier (as do I). I am concern because his teams seem to be the same each year and reflect many of his personal bad traits. I am worried that we will not go to the next level with Mack (ala Andy Dalton). I think he is a good coach, but not a great coach. Each of his years as a head coach for XU I've pulled out the unpopular graphic below. Be honest, we see these same issues each year. Why?

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2598/4145282267_d1043c25c2_o.jpg

I really, really hope I am wrong.

[XUFan09]

Wow, bringing up the record since the brawl, as if anything significant can be derived from that? I think we can all agree that the remainder of that season was up and down, and though they eventually turned it into around near the end to make the Sweet 16, they didn't win many more games than they lost the rest of that season. So okay, being a little above .500 for the remainder of that season could be attributed to the post-brawl fallout. But the next season? They went 17-14 not because they were still thinking about the brawl, but because Dez Wells was suddenly gone, Myles Davis and Jalen Reynolds were ineligible, Jeff Robinson was a friggin' starter, and Brad Redford was a 6th man or starter despite in production being a perennial 7th-8th man.

[boozehound]

I think we all need to take a firm step back from the ledge and calm ourselves.

We took a very good Iowa team to OT, then laid 2 eggs and against what will probably end up being a good Tennessee team and a decent USC team. I'm not happy about it either, but things aren't as bad as they seem (just like they weren't as good as they seemed earlier).

Here is what I see so far:

Randolph - looks like he has a lot of potential
Farr - Huge improvement over LY. Still needs to watch the fouling on defense a bit, but should play as many minutes as he can.
Myles Davis - looks very good for a Freshman that had to sit out a year
Jalen Reynolds - He will be fine. He is a Freshman big who sat out a year. Look at how much Farr has improved. Big men take time to develop at this level.
Philmore - Role player.
Dee Davis - Backup PG at best (and by that I mean a 10-15 min per game backup)
Semaj - still lacks consistency and still can't make FT's. Outside shooting seems a little better than LY. Seems to lack some of the mental toughness that Holloway had.
Martin - Looks to have improved from LY, but still lacks consistency and will never be a 'go-to' guy

There is a lot of positive in there. The biggest negative is the tremendously horrible play of Dee Davis. We would have beaten Iowa if Davis had even done a marginally competent job of running the point with Semaj out. Randolph is still very young so I'm not sure if he would have been a better option at the point.

These early season tournaments are tough for young teams, and we are relying on a lot of new guys for consistent production this season. People still need to discover their roles on the team and what they can and can't do at the college level. I believe we will move forward from this in a positive direction.

[Kahns Krazy]

Back to the question, we are where we are. I never look back on a season and think "Wow, remember where that team was on December 2nd?"

The season doesn't end today. We lost three in a row. Bummer. We won 5 in a row. Woo hoo! I don't think we've suddenly entered into a nose dive. I didn't watch any of the games after Iowa, but against Iowa I saw a good team that fought hard and could have won that game. Oh well.

If this were a Prosser team, I'd be worried, because those teams peaked in November. That's a long outdated way of thinking. I think this team will turn it around, but if they don't, it will be because of the future games, not the games we've already played.

[Smails]

Wow, bringing up the record since the brawl, as if anything significant can be derived from that?

I hear ya. Let's take a sample size with no real relevance and use it to fit our argument.

2 years ago, en route to the sweet 16, XU lost to Oral Roberts, Long Beach State and Hawaii. (sorry if this was brought up in previous threads).

I'll tell you where we are..5-3 with 7 of our next 8 being played in Cincnnati. There are huge wins to be had in the next couple weeks and this team has a week off to get the ship straight. I've always been more of an optimist than a wet blanket so I'm not packing in the season just yet. I think people need to remember that the days of having to win 23-25 games to get into the tourney went away when we left the A-10.

[Masterofreality]

The Chris Mack Show should be very interesting tonight.

[Muskie]

Back to the question, we are where we are. I never look back on a season and think "Wow, remember where that team was on December 2nd?"

The season doesn't end today. We lost three in a row. Bummer. We won 5 in a row. Woo hoo! I don't think we've suddenly entered into a nose dive. I didn't watch any of the games after Iowa, but against Iowa I saw a good team that fought hard and could have won that game. Oh well.

If this were a Prosser team, I'd be worried, because those teams peaked in November. That's a long outdated way of thinking. I think this team will turn it around, but if they don't, it will be because of the future games, not the games we've already played.

Philosophical but to the point (very Skip of you).

[GuyFawkes38]

Here is what I see so far:

Randolph - looks like he has a lot of potential
Farr - Huge improvement over LY. Still needs to watch the fouling on defense a bit, but should play as many minutes as he can.
Myles Davis - looks very good for a Freshman that had to sit out a year
Jalen Reynolds - He will be fine. He is a Freshman big who sat out a year. Look at how much Farr has improved. Big men take time to develop at this level.
Philmore - Role player.
Dee Davis - Backup PG at best (and by that I mean a 10-15 min per game backup)
Semaj - still lacks consistency and still can't make FT's. Outside shooting seems a little better than LY. Seems to lack some of the mental toughness that Holloway had.
Martin - Looks to have improved from LY, but still lacks consistency and will never be a 'go-to' guy


Completely agree with this.

It is great to have multiple Mack recruits really come through. I'm pumped about our first year players and Farr.

[Lamont Sanford]

The Chris Mack Show should be very interesting tonight.

Agreed. Paging xuab, paging xuab!

[danaandvictory]

It is a young team.

The typical starting five consists of a fifth-year senior, two fourth-year juniors, a junior, and a sophomore who played virtually every minute for the team last year.

[casualfan]

I wish people would stop bringing up the youth as an excuse. It's just not true.

We have 4 freshman (two of which are very old for freshman), 2 sophomores, 3 juniors, and 3 seniors who contribute.

I think people have a tendency to look at guys like Stainbrook and Philmore as young guys even though they are not. Just because they haven't been here for long doesn't make them young. Same with Stenger.

Go compare our roster against any in the Big East and I doubt you'll find too many who are older. Hell, look at Villanova. They have 5 juniors and seniors combined (less than us) and they don't seem to be having issues.

There are lots of arguments to be made about what is wrong with this team. The fact that they are young is not one of them IMHO.

[danaandvictory]

I think there's a good argument that the guys have not meshed yet as a unit on the court. That's a different issue from experience/age.

[bleedXblue]

I wish people would stop bringing up the youth as an excuse. It's just not true.

We have 4 freshman (two of which are very old for freshman), 2 sophomores, 3 juniors, and 3 seniors who contribute.

I think people have a tendency to look at guys like Stainbrook and Philmore as young guys even though they are not. Just because they haven't been here for long doesn't make them young. Same with Stenger.

Go compare our roster against any in the Big East and I doubt you'll find too many who are older. Hell, look at Villanova. They have 5 juniors and seniors combined (less than us) and they don't seem to be having issues.

There are lots of arguments to be made about what is wrong with this team. The fact that they are young is not one of them IMHO.

The issue somewhat is about playing together and gelling as a team. We have Stain, M Davis, Randolph and Reynolds all playing significant minutes and they are all playing their first year with a lot of the guys. Practice is one thing....playing in games is another. I think the cold, hard reality is some of the guys playing a lot of the minutes have a very small margin of error and they are not high D1 players IMHO. Talent makes up for a lot of mistakes and marginal performances.

[casualfan]

I think the cold, hard reality is some of the guys playing a lot of the minutes have a very small margin of error and they are not high D1 players IMHO. Talent makes up for a lot of mistakes and marginal performances.

This is exactly my point. It's less about guys not being experienced and more about guys just not being very good.

[kyxu]

I think there's a good argument that the guys have not meshed yet as a unit on the court. That's a different issue from experience/age.

I think that's the big issue here. Not youth. Team chemistry is easy to find when you're pounding Morehead State and Miami into the ground. But for five halves of basketball in the Bahamas, we saw a rather disjointed team that really didn't know how to play together.

Another issue is maturity in the sense that our defense seems to only play well when we're making shots. That started to become apparent in the Iowa game when we started to slump offensively and Iowa made its run on the offensive end and things kinda fell apart. It carried over to the Tennessee game where we just got abused on the interior on O and D.

[xufan2434]

I think the Iowa loss was clearly way too much for this team to handle. I'd rather it happen now then later on in the season. The first 28 minutes of that game, X played great. They were being aggressive, hitting shots, and playing good defense. There was even an alley oop thrown in there. I think that's what to take away the most.

The other losses obviously suck and its on the coaching staff just as much as the players to have them prepared with that adversity. They definitely got a kick to the nuts that I think I've had to say every X team has needed since the 04' team.

I just really really hope Semaj is done with the calf cramping bull shit. Someone hydrate the kid. He's too important to the success of this team for that to happen again.

Justin and Dee are definitely disappointing and will not be playing more basketball after their careers at X but they play better when those around them do too -- i.e. role players.

3 losses before conference play especially this early isn't good from the record stand point, but there are a lot of good wins for this team to get down the road. Marquette is definitely beatable and Creighton just played like crap. Georgetown hasn't been consistent and X has more potential in my opinion than all the other teams left in this league maybe besides Villanova.

[vee4xu]

One thing that can never be underestimated is really good senior leadership. Because of how things have unfolded, this team does not have a David West, Lionel Chalmers, Justin Cage, Justin Doellman, Romain Sato, Josh Duncan, Dante Jackson, BJ Raymond, plus more, but you get the point. Coaches rely on seniors to pave the way and Xavier just hasn't had many seniors who progressed enough to be nearly equal to any of the aforementioned former leaders. Dante is on the bench and can be a source of that leadership, but he isn't practicing every day and battling with the troops every game. Now, this isn't to say the Xavier is a rudderless ship, but just to point out that the guys who are leaders now don't have that credibility yet. When they do later this year and next year, especially with a bunch more freshmen coming in things may be different. Also, not saying this is the only issue, but to me it is surely a big one.

[XUFan09]

The typical starting five consists of a fifth-year senior, two fourth-year juniors, a junior, and a sophomore who played virtually every minute for the team last year.

Weighted for minutes played, Xavier ranks 302nd in Experience (per Kenpom) at 1.26 years as average. Pomeroy gives 0 years for a freshman, 1 for a sophomore and so on. His numbers do not account for redshirt years, but really, a redshirt junior is much more like a traditional junior than a senior and so on with other classes. The team starts with a sophomore and four upperclassmen but the bench is composed of all freshmen plus Stenger. Even when you consider that Dee missed two games and Martin missed one, this is still a fairly young team. Maybe not one of the 50 youngest, but they'll probably rank in the 200s in terms of experience.


I think there's a good argument that the guys have not meshed yet as a unit on the court. That's a different issue from experience/age.

Though I said that above, I still think this is much more the issue. All off-season we were talking about how this team had a lot of newcomers, that they would take awhile to mesh, that there would be some bumps in the road, only to forget that after a 5-0 start. It would probably be much less jarring, for the team and for us fans, if the bumps had been diffused across the first eight games and not compiled together for one massive, back-jolting bump. We'll see if it leads to any constructive learning experiences.

One other note: Does anyone really think Dee's performance this weekend is the norm for him? I mean, really think about it. It's clearly within his range of play and on the other side he doesn't have huge upside, but this past weekend will probably go down as the worst period of Dee's entire career. He will probably be a steady role player for the team who you can't rely on to do more than that. It is what it is, but Randolph is getting better each day. He's much more dynamic and higher upside.

[SixFig]

We must win either Alabama or UC in order to get back in the at large discussion. Need a signature road/neutral nonconference win.

Not too worried. Remember, past Xavier teams have lost to the likes of Hawaii, Bucknell (home!), Oral Roberts, Long Beach etc. and been fine.

[The_Mack_Pack]

We must win either Alabama or UC in order to get back in the at large discussion. Need a signature road/neutral nonconference win.

Not too worried. Remember, past Xavier teams have lost to the likes of Hawaii, Bucknell (home!), Oral Roberts, Long Beach etc. and been fine.

Agreed, it's a long season and this team can only improve from here. Just have to stand strong at home and steal some road wins throughout the season and we'll be fine.

[bjf123]

Not too worried. Remember, past Xavier teams have lost to the likes of Hawaii, Bucknell (home!), Oral Roberts, Long Beach etc. and been fine.

True, but when those losses happened, the mood around here was anything but positive.



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