Top 15 Home Losses

[xubrew]

When looking at the current Top Fifteen

1. UCLA won at Kentucky
2. Villanova won at Creighton
3. Virginia won at Louisville

That's all.

Teams who have lost on the road against top fifteen teams include Villanova losing at Butler, UCLA losing at Oregon, Kentucky losing at Louisville, Baylor losing at West Virginia, Butler losing at Creighton, Duke losing at Louisville, and Florida State losing at North Carolina.

My point is that even top 15 teams don't win on the road against top fifteen teams all that often. I'm not saying it's wrong to feel that we should have won, but I am saying that you're wrong if you think these types of games are routinely won by anyone. Even the team that finishes the season ranked #1 probably has as many losses (if not more) in true road games against top fifteen teams as they do wins. When Kentucky ran the table two years ago, they didn't beat a team that finished in the top 15 on the road. I think Louisville ended up #16 that year.

By all means, keep running around with torches and pitchforks. But, also realize that if you get even one win on the road against a top fifteen team that you've done something that almost no one else has done. We're over half way through the year, and so far only three teams have managed to do it.

We were close today. We were closer than Nova was the other week.

Just sayin....

[xu82]

Let's hope this trend continues for a week or so....

[X Factor]

Good post Brew. Of course it's tough to win on the road. It sucks though to lose on the road in part because your best players don't show up (Trevon 2-10, JP w/ 7 turnovers, Ed finally getting aggressive after 30 minutes of game time). Today was a winnable game for Xavier. We had a 6 point lead at halftime and then allowed Butler come out of half and promptly go on a 9-0 run to take the lead. There was no energy or sense of urgency.

[GoMuskies]

Let's hope this trend continues for a week or so....

Won't affect us. We won't be ranked in the top 20 by Monday.

[D-West & PO-Z]

Won't affect us. We won't be ranked in the top 20 by Monday.

Kind of unique in that a day game Monday though. When are rankings usually released? Sometime between 12-1pm? So I guess our ranking will change an hour before game time?

[XUMIOH12]

yep very good perspective here. 2 losses in a row sucks but they were 2 losses on the road against top 12 teams. The brunt of the toughest stretch is behind us, just need to put together a couple wins to get back on track

[XUMIOH12]

Kind of unique in that a day game Monday though. When are rankings usually released? Sometime between 12-1pm? So I guess our ranking will change an hour before game time?

yep. probably low 20s

[HenryMuto]

You are correct they don't lose at home often so when you have a chance to get a big time win at a top 15 home team you want to take full advantage because that means so much in the eyes of the committee. To get a top 15 road win is when you will get a huge seed bump up just based on that 1 game alone.

[X Factor]

You are correct they don't lose at home often so when you have a chance to get a big time win at a top 15 home team you want to take full advantage because that means so much in the eyes of the committee. To get a top 15 road win is when you will get a huge seed bump up just based on that 1 game alone.

True. I feel the guys let one get away yesterday at Hinkle. Gave up a 9-0 run to start the second half...no energy or leadership on the court.

[XU 87]

True. I feel the guys let one get away yesterday at Hinkle. Gave up a 9-0 run to start the second half...no energy or leadership on the court.

If Bluiett had hit even one of his 3 open shots in that stretch, it wouldn't have been a 9-0 run.

Did Butler show lack of energy and leadership when X went built the 10 point lead in the first half?

[X Factor]

If Bluiett had hit even one of his 3 open shots in that stretch, it wouldn't have been a 9-0 run.

Did Butler show lack of energy and leadership when X went built the 10-0 point lead in the first half?

There's gonna be runs in games, both sides. However, Xavier came out in the second half and for whatever reason, did not show a sense of urgency. We could've come out and went on a 5-0 or 6-0 run and then we're up double digits early in the second half. Instead, within minutes, X is playing from behind.

Is that s lack of leadership from one of our main guys? Were they tuned in and completely focused to start the second half?

[xubrew]

I don't get many days off outside of the summer, but I had one today/tomorrow and am in a rather candid mood. That might be a bad thing, but it's a message board and no one knows who the fuck I am anyway, then what difference does it make?? I travel a lot, and this site is a genuine refuge. I can come here and have impassioned that are completely inconsequential, but still feel great to have. And if things aren't exciting enough, you can say something to make them more exciting. So, if things go to shit with this, it'll pay off later when I need to pass some time and can come on here and throw a few cyber punches with people who, perhaps, are looking to pass the same kind of time.

Oh yeah...my point.

Almost winning the lottery sucks a lot less than having your house foreclosed on, but it still really sucks. Winning at Butler would have felt amazingly good. I respect the shit out of them, but don't particularly like them. And, it sucks that I don't like them because I like Brad Stevens, and I liked Christ Holtmann (still do) when he was at Gardner Webb. I guess I respect them, but still don't like them. So, to win AT THEIR PLACE, AND pick up what would have been one of the ten best wins that any team managed on paper, would have felt...GREAT!! The "Butler Way." Wow. What ingenious marketing guy did they hire to come up with that? And, they're smuggishly shitty about it. I wish we could have beaten them, at their house, and told them that was the "Xavier Way."

But, we didn't. It would have been great if we did, but other than bruised egos and hurt feelings our NCAA profile is just fine. And, that's my next point...

I don't know when it happened, but shortly after we joined the Big East I began worrying less about how good our overall season looked to the selection committee, and worrying more about what our actual ceiling for success was. And...that's why I started this thread. Losing at Butler sucked major ox tits, which isn't as bad as sucking major ox balls, but it's not a whole lot better. But, I do think our ceiling for success is pretty much the same. We almost won. Had we won it would have felt great, but it wouldn't have raised our ceiling. Losing sucked, but it didn't lower our ceiling either. We almost beat them. We came close to beating them than Nova did, and they are the best team in the nation. Our ceiling is high. We are a solid tournament team. If we play up to it at the right time, we're in great shape!!

Lastly, I think playing on the road is a lot like learning how to run a maratho. You have to train for it. You can't learn how to do run unless you get out there and run. Back in early January everyone was stunned that Duke lost as badly as they did at Virginia Tech. Well, it was their first true road game. I wasn't shocked at all. Same with North Carolina losing at Georgia Tech (okay, that one was sort of surprising), and Baylor at West Virginia, and some others. Everyone was "shocked," but it's not that shocking....

It's something that you have to learn how to do, and the only way to learn how to do it is to do it, and the sooner you do it the better, even if you lose. Look at Virginia. Last year they went to George Washington on the fourth day of the season and lost. Tony Bennett schedules a game like this in the first week of the season every year for a reason. He wants to get his team acclimated to playing on the road, and he wants it to be a showcase game for the team they're playing against, and the risk of losing doesn't bother him. By the time league play started, they were ready.

Same with North Carolina last year. They went to Texas and to Northern Iowa (for different reasons, but the end results were the same). They lost both those games, but still ended up completing the acclamation process to playing on the road in hostile environments prior to conference play beginning. Both ended up as #1 seeds. I HATE the reasoning of having everything to gain and nothing to lose for not playing a tough OOC road game against a good lower level conference team. Both UNC and Virginia (and for that matter, Villanvoa) did it last year. UNC and Virginia lost the games. But, did they lose everything?? Was winning the ACC losing everything?? Was getting a one seed losing everything?? Was being the national runner up losing everything??

Going on the road and playing a team that hates you, or is jealous of you, during the OOC portion of the season can pay off. Even if you lose. Although it sucks in the moment and everything is shitty, it fades away. No one remembered ore cared that UVA lost to GW or that UNC lost to UNI last year. Unless you're just unbelievably talented, you're gonna get dinged in your first really tough road game, and probably the first two or three really tough road games. Better to get dinged early and get yourself ready than to be dinged later. Which, we did this year. We went to Baylor and Colorado (and REALLY should have won that game), but still appear to be struggling. But, after the game at Butler, I think we're getting better. We could have won that game. We almost did. If we had, we would have had the fourth most impressive road win of the entire college basketball season on our profile (so far). But, we just missed it, and that sucks, but our ceiling is still high. And, I've decided to tell myself that's all I care about.

I think it sucks that the Shootout is not before conference play. A huge benefit of it is that it feels like a conference game given the nature of the rivalry, and playing it prior to conference play gets you ready for conference play, ESPECIALLY if you're the road team. But, we moved it to February. Gee, great idea! And, I know it's because of ESPN, but the game was on Fox last year and had over a million viewers. I bet this year's game doesn't.

But to be completely fair, Butler lost at Indiana State this year, and still can't seem to get to where they can play as well on the road as they do at home or at neutral sites. But, they did get a nice win at Utah prior to the Indiana State game. Perhaps they started off as a good road team, and somehow worked backwards.

[xubrew]

Oh yeah, and we just got a key player back. So, there's that. It could be that by early March EVERYTHING is firing on full cylinder!

[American X]

Dose of consolation:

- of Xavier's 6 losses, 5 are to teams in the Kenpom top 25
- only one of the losses is at home
- plenty more chances for quality wins in Big East