Monday Afternoon Notes

After the Duquesne loss on Saturday X's RPI has actually moved up to #5. In all honesty I thought we would drop to the mid teens. However Duquesne is a team with an RPI around 90. For reference Wake Forest dropped an ACC game to Georgia Tech who comes in around 140 on the RPI. Conference losses are hard to escape. We did drop in both the AP and ESPN/USA Today polls to 14th. Butler fans have to be upset with the pollsters because they come in at 15th in both polls. SO first things first to all the detractors who said our SOS would tank in the A10; it hasn't exactly happened that way pallies. Strong wins over Missouri, LSU, and Memphis are resonating now and in March. Also (and you couldn't tell by this blog)UC is becoming more of a quality win to go along with VA Tech as well. All five wins were of the road/neutral court variety.

A win on the road Wednesday night at UD will be a tough challenge. The Flyers just dropped one on Sunday afternoon at Charlotte. It is fair to say that Charlotte has had less impact on the A10 than CUSA other than to hurt league at large chances by scoring the occassional upset. I am feeling confident we will win for the 7th straight time overall against UD. IF we do win the players, coaches, and staff would be wise to leave through an unmarked exit and load into several unmarked cars. I have had the opportunity to view this rivalry one time at UD Arena. It is by far the most hostile environment I have seen X play in personally and that includes the Shootout games. When a 70 year old+ lady refers to you as a 'Xavier Fag' right off the bat you know it's going to be a long night. SO IF we win the natives will be a little more than restless and most likely violent. They are desperate for another signature win to go along with their Marquette victory. Back to the game I think X will have to limit turnovers (sound familiar?) and hit free throws around 70% (sound familiar?) to win, but again I am confident they will find a way. The desire of the team is to stay in the hunt for a top 4 seed for the NCAA tournament.

What to say about the Duquesne loss? I am sorry I didn't have the usual recap but I had a very busy weekend and I have learned not to post when I am heavily intoxicated. First thing I will say is that X fans who traveled to the game need to have a ceremony to burn all those damn blue snuggies. Snuggies = X loss. Also Ken Frease will be fine with the ankle turn. I don't think he would have played more than 10 minutes anyway with the pace the game was being played at. We didn't shoot poorly but Duquesne was absolutely on fire in the first half shooting 81%. New Jersey Institute of Technology would beat us if they shot 81% in the first half. But I was pleased to see Sean and BJ offer no excuses for the loss and I will follow their lead. X lost and it is time to move on. Looking forward to an exciting, tough challenge with a different outcome this Wednesday night.