Xavier's Turnaround Season Continues With BIG EAST Quarterfinal Victory
By Sean Brennan
Special to BIGEAST.com
It wasn’t all that long ago when the Xavier Musketeers’ season looked to be dead in the water. They had just lost their sixth straight game, had dropped to 3-8 in the conference and, to paraphrase Rick Pitino from his days with the then-struggling Celtics, Trevon Bluiett and J.P. Macura were not going to come walking through that locker room door.
What ended the Musketeers’ worst slide of the season was an overtime win in the Cintas Center over Creighton on Feb. 13 and it helped jumpstart Xavier into a 6-1 finish to the regular season. It was that spurt that helped propel the Musketeers to the No. 4 seed in the BIG EAST Tournament where they, perhaps, hunt for a title while polishing up their resume a tad with the hopes of landing an NCAA at-large bid. After all they were a team that entered the tournament with a 17-14 record.
So who should be standing in the way of Xavier Thursday afternoon but that same Creighton team that kick-started the Musketeers’ season a month ago. Only a lot more was riding on the outcome of this matchup, and when you add in the fact that Xavier had never defeated the Bluejays in BIG EAST Tournament play (they were 0-2 coming into the quarterfinals), well, that just added to the Xavier drama.
As you might expect it was not going to be easy to get by a Bluejays team that came into the tournament winners of four straight, and it wasn’t. But Zach Hankins’ layup with 21 seconds remaining snapped a 61-61 tie, and then Kyle Castlin came up with the defensive play of the game when he partially blocked Ty-Shon Alexander’s three-point attempt with four seconds to play as the Musketeers hung on for a thrilling 63-61 victory over Creighton in the BIG EAST quarterfinals at a sold out Madison Square Garden.
Xavier moves on to face top-seeded Villanova in Friday semifinals beginning at 6:30 p.m.
“Man, that was a heck of a game,” Xavier coach Travis Steele said. “Creighton really tests you in a lot of different ways.”
Xavier led 36-29 at the half and opened the second half with a 9-4 run to build a 45-33 lead after a three-pointer by Castlinwith 16:13 to play. With the ‘Let’s Go X’ chants growing louder by the minute, it sure looked like the Musketeers had things well in hand as the Bluejays looked to be reeling. Instead, Creighton reeled off a 17-5 run of its own. Freshman Marcus Zegarowski capped the run with a layup with 6:33 to go and the game was knotted at 50-50. More drama.
Momentum now squarely with the Bluejays and Xavier in desperate need of a lift, they got just what they needed from Hankins.
The graduate student proceeded to score eight of the next 11 Xavier points. The only problem for the Musketeers was that Creighton went shot for shot with them and when Mitch Ballock knocked down a three-pointer with 1:33 to play, the game was again even at 61-61 which. That set the stage for Haskins’ final bucket and a Castlin block that helped save Xavier’s tournament lives.
“I just really take what is given to me,” said Hankins, who finished with 22 points, one shy of his career high. “I don’t create a lot for myself. That’s why I give so much credit to these guys. They find me. They were able to get inside the paint and then draw my defender up and give it to me. I can finish that.”
And because he did, Xavier is off to the semifinals and a date with top-seeded Villanova. Well, Hankins layup and Castlin’s enormous block of Alexander at the end.
“I knew I just had to put it all on the line and try to seal the game,” said Castlin, who like Haskins is also a grad student. And now that 3-8 conference record seems like a lifetime ago for Xavier.
“I think the losing streak this season for us was just a great learning experience,” said Castlin, who finished with 10 points. “We just take each and every game as it comes. I don’t want to necessarily say that we surprised ourselves or anyone else. We know how good we can be and how good we are in practice each and every day. We’re just looking forward to the Villanova game and just want to keep on this run that we’ve been playing well with.”
As for Creighton, which got 21 points from Alexander and 14 from Martin Krampelj, head coach Greg McDermott hopes there is still some meaningful basketball to be played by his Bluejays this season as Creighton holds out hope for an NCAA at-large bid to the Big Dance.
“It just depends if playing a good schedule is going to be rewarded,” said McDermott, whose team played Ohio State, Nebraska, Clemson and Gonzaga outside of his BIG EAST slate this season. “We played one of the better schedules, a top 10 schedule in the country, and if that’s important, then we’ll have a shot. If the committee decides that it’s not that important, then we won’t. So we’ll wait and see. Hope we get in. If we don’t, we’ll give it everything we have in the NIT.”