Xavier Keeps Bubble Hopes Alive With 75-64 #BEtourney Win Over DePaul
By SEAN BRENNAN
Special to BIGEAST.com
NEW YORK -- There was no room for error for Xavier in Thursday night’s BIG EAST Tournament opener against DePaul.
With their NCAA Tournament hopes hanging by a thread, at least according to the bracketologists out there who have the Musketeers squarely on the proverbial bubble, there could be no missteps against the 10th-seeded Blue Demons.
Coming into the tournament with just one win in their last seven games – with that one coming against DePaul in last Saturday’s regular-season finale - the seventh-seeded Musketeers had to go about the business of piling up as many wins as possible in the BIG EAST Tournament in order to make that NCAA tournament resume look as appetizing as possible to the tournament selection committee on Sunday.
A loss to DePaul, a team that has lost 13 of its last 14 games coming into Madison Square Garden, would surely derail any NCAA Tournament hopes for the X-men. But there was Xavier, down a point at halftime to a DePaul team that was playing like it had nothing to lose and was hoping to shake things up a bit in New York before calling it a season.
So with their tournament hopes hanging in the balance, The Musketeers turned to Trevon Bluiett and Quentin Goodin to save their season and the duo did just that. Down a point with 17:55 to play, the Xavier duo keyed a decisive 23-8 run over an almost eight-minute span to break open a tight contest and keep their NCAA dreams alive for another day as Xavier knocked off DePaul, 75-64, in the second opening-round game at the Garden.
Xavier (20-12) won’t have much time to enjoy its victory as the Musketeers will now face second-seeded Butler in Thursday’s quarterfinals at 7 p.m. Butler swept the season series from Xavier this season.
“We’re happy to be moving on,” Xavier head coach Chris Mack said. “I told our team I thought our first 20 minutes of the game we didn’t play great. I think we were pressing. I don’t blame them, they’re kids. They want to play in the dance. They want to continue their season.”
Xavier was trailing, 36-35, with 17:55 to play after a jumper by DePaul’s Eli Cain (15 points) when the Musketeers stopped hitting the snooze button and finally woke up from their game-long slumber. The decisive spurt began with a three-ball from Bluiett (17 points), who was a woeful 0-for-7 from the field in the first half. The spurt continued with a steal and dunk from Malcolm Bernard followed by a layup from Rashid Gaston and the Musketeers began to pull away. Bluiett added a pair of layups before Goodin (13 points) added one of his own as the pair combined for eight of the next 10 Xavier points. When the dust finally settled Xavier was holding a commanding 14-point lead at 58-44 with just over 10:00 to play.
“I thought in the second half we took a little bit of advantage of the interior,” Mack said. “I thought Quentin did a great job of getting in the lane. That’s always our game plan. We want to get the ball in the lane. We did a much better job in the second half than the first.”
DePaul (9-23) tried to get off the mat and get back in the game and managed to pull within nine points at 64-54 after a layup by Billy Garrett Jr. with 6:28 left. But that would be as close as the Blue Demons would get the rest of the way.
Xavier still has some work to do in the eyes of some hoop prognosticators and other assorted talking heads and a victory over Butler would go a long way to solidifying that tournament bid come Sunday.
Asked if he thinks if his team has already secured a spot in the NCAA Tournament field, Mack played it coy.
“I don’t know. I’m going to stick with my buddy, Jim Boeheim,” Mack said, referring to the Syracuse coach who, well, has his own issues with the selection committee.
DePaul was led by Garrett Jr., the Blue Demons classy senior who finished with 16 points in the final game of his DePaul career. Garrett, a native of Chicago who said he came to DePaul in the hopes of resurrecting the program after years of futility, never was able to accomplish his goal. But he did manage to carve out quite a career for himself at DePaul, finishing in the top 10 on the school’s all-time scoring and assists lists while leaving as the school’s all-time leader in made free throws.
Garrett Jr. was asked how he would sum up his career with the Blue Demons.
“From a pure win and losses standpoint, it hasn’t been ideal. But I get that question a lot,” Garrett Jr. said. “And people ask me if it was a bad experience. No, not at all. No experience, nothing in life is necessarily bad. Everything is a learning experience. So being at DePaul is no different. I met a lot of great people and learned a lot of valuable lessons and dealt with a lot of other people. I’m coming out of here a stronger person and it reaches beyond basketball, you know what I mean? Overall, I think it was a positive experience. I’m coming out of here a lot more mature and ready for life.”