Travis Steele Up for Coaching Award (despite some threads to the contrary)

[Muskie]

Link

Xavier University head coach Travis Steele has been named as a finalist for the Joe B. Hall National Coach of the Year Award, which is given annually to the nation's top first-year head coach in Division I.

Steele, who took over a team with no returning double-figure scorers, has led Xavier to a 17-14 record in his first season as the Musketeer head coach.

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Guess we shouldn't fire him?

[GoMuskies]

Not yet

[UCGRAD4X]

Not to diminish this at all, but I wonder how many brand new coaches there were this year? What's the competition look like? He certainly deserves some kudos. Hope he wins it, that would be a nice plaque to put on his mantle.

[stammina0721]

Um do we realize...
Mack 0-2 vs Creighton in BET
Steele 1-0... Another feather in the year one cap

[deepX]

Steele may want to send a thank you note to McDermott and also ask about his off-season plans for those 2 TO's he kept. They must have been important to him to not use one while his team seem in no particular hurry to get town court and/or go toward the basket.

-deepX

[bleedXblue]

Steele may want to send a thank you note to McDermott and also ask about his off-season plans for those 2 TO's he kept. They must have been important to him to not use one while his team seem in no particular hurry to get town court and/or go toward the basket.

-deepX

actually it doesn't seem like Creighton runs a lot of set plays.......so doesn't surprise me that they would struggle

They seem to like to play at a high pace, lots of ball screens and motion to get the jump shooter open

[xavierj]

Steele may want to send a thank you note to McDermott and also ask about his off-season plans for those 2 TO's he kept. They must have been important to him to not use one while his team seem in no particular hurry to get town court and/or go toward the basket.

-deepX

Actually they had no plans to go to the basket. They wanted a 3. They didn’t want to call a TO because they didn’t want Xavier to set the defense. It actually worked because Xavier got caught out of position but the pass was slow and Castlin recovered quickly. The last 5 weeks Steele has Xavier playing better defense than any Xavier team I can remember. If Chris Mack was still coach Xavier would have lost by 20 because he has no idea what defense is. Xavier held a really good offense to 61 points yesterday.

[deepX]

Teams often don't want to call a time out so as not to give the defense a chance to set up, but since it was after a made basket our defense was set and they walked the ball down court. With 28 seconds and down 2 after we scored, getting a quick shot closer to the basket with time left for a possible offensive rebound or a foul if not would have made a lot more sense. I'm just glad we are on the happy side of that possession. I would have been livid if we had done that in that situation.