Exhibition Game Thread: Xavier v. Dayton (10/20/24)

[paulxu]

[xubrew]

That's a fair way of looking at it. I recall - and maybe I'm wrong - a few "negative" comments about him. But I believe he'll prove his value over time.

UD fans have no limits to their small time thinking and delusion. God forbid that we would have athletes who enter a contest where they're focused on winning.

By 29 points in Orlando. By 24 points yesterday in that poorly designed dump.

You just know that, on a not so deep down basis, many VD fans have come to understand their place in the grand scheme of things. Their place is with LaSalle and Fordham. Their place is in a watered down A10.

It's almost impressive that they can still attract 13k fans to their home games with such a bad product. Nasty, bad ROI on a basketball program.

I don’t miss the A10. At all. I thought then, and still think now, that the people in leadership roles need their houses checked for lead. It actually has some solid programs that care about basketball and are at least ambitious in wanting to be successful. Three programs have actually been to Final Fours in the last 15-20 years or so, and three more have been to Elite Eights. That’s actually pretty good. But the thing is that none of them other than UD’s run (where they just barely made it in to the NCAAs) did it while they were actually members of the A10. Loyola Chicago was in the MVC, and Mason and VCU were in the Colonial. Davidson was in the SoCon during their run.

They’ve also got too many teams that just don’t give a shit about basketball, and are just (poorly) going through the motions. And the most frustrating thing is it always felt like this was who the conference was catering to. I remember being astounded when I learned Duquesne and Fordham were somehow getting bigger NCAA Tournament shares than Xavier was. It just seemed ridiculous!

Dayton does at least care. As much as they seem to chap X’s ass, it was always Fordham and Duquesne that chapped mine. Having said that, Dayton has a power conference level basketball budget. It pretty much dwarfs the rest of the A10. They play 6 buy games and 18 conference games. That’s 24 games against teams they should almost always have a notable advantage over, and it’s not even including the conference tournament. If they aren’t winning at least 20 of those a year, they’re kind of underachieving. When you consider the other 6 or 7 games on their schedule as well as the conference and postseason tournaments, 25 wins should pretty much be the expectation. Anything short of that may not be a failure, but it sure as hell isn’t a success. Yet they’ve failed to do it in six of the last eight years. That’s just not good enough. Once they do they five or six years in a row, which they really should expect to do and be able to given all the advantages they have, then they’ll have a bigger national brand like they think they should.

[D-West & PO-Z]

Ask and you shall receive:



"Don't worry, he coughs less than Sean"

HA, never gets old. So good.

[D-West & PO-Z]

I am watching on plus. Guard play will dominate this team. Hunter and Free look ok. Dayton just isn’t a good team, Posh isn’t fixing that.

Yep, some concerns about out big men but our scoring is so good and guards win in March. Love how this team looked.

[D-West & PO-Z]

I think McKnight, Conwell, Foster and Maddux all proved they could start. But there are 4 of them...so yeah, crazy depth.

Green looked good too. Shooting, driving, ball handling. His role tonight is what we need because he will attract specific attention when hes on the floor. Maybe a BE version of Brad Redford with a better handle and driving skill. looked very promising in my opinion.

Swain looked like Swain looked last year. I want to be sure that Swain turns into JP Macura defensively instead of Jeff Robinson. or maybe I want JPs instinct in Jeff Robinson's body. he could be the defensive disruption and offensive above the rim guy but he didnt show either. maybe I missed it. Still think he can and will. I just expected a wow game.

Free and Hunter looked great. they didnt look like guys that were coming off injuries. Free hit 2 3's, which Im torn about. he shot 14 for 22 in 2023 before he was injured which was great, but they were all shot clock beaters practically. I dotn want Free to be a rhythm shooter. I want him posted, and be available to hit that shot clock 3. 1.5 attempts per game! period. Hunter also looked good. Seemed like situations that would have rushed him in the past were just at "normal speed". i think he could be a D stopper this year. And scrapman on offense.

Still interior defense and OReb questions.

But also, the strenghts of this team were apparent.

Free is going to have the green light if he is open to shoot 3's and I think he will shoot a very high percentage but I don't think it will excessive or a major part of his game just another piece.

[D-West & PO-Z]

Anyway, always good to win at UDump Arena, no matter the stakes.