Box Score | DePaul Quotes | Xavier Quotes | Notes
By SEAN BRENNAN
BIGEAST.com
Xavier had a couple of things going its way as it entered Thursday night’s BIG EAST Tournament quarterfinal game against DePaul. First, since it joined the conference for the 2013-14 season, the Musketeers were unbeaten in six quarterfinal-round games. Pretty impressive, no?. And secondly, not only were the No. 2 seed Musketeers facing a 10th-seeded DePaul team, but Xavier’s offensive firepower was supposed to be more than enough to secure a win against the Blue Demons team that was coming off an emotional win over Seton Hall Wednesday night and move them on to Friday night’s semifinals.
Xavier leads the BIG EAST in not one, but four, major offensive categories. The Musketeers are first in the nation in assists-per-game with 19.9 per game, are third in the nation in overall field goal percentage (.500), are fifth in the nation in three-point field goal percentage (.398) and are 10th in the nation in scoring offense at 82.1 points per outing.
How could DePaul, which came into the conference tournament on a 12-game losing streak before the win over Seton Hall, keep up with such offensive prowess? What would the Blue Demons’ answer be? Sure, they have Umoja Gibson, who came into the game ranked sixth in the BIG EAST in scoring at 15.8 points a game. But what else?
And besides, Xavier had some added motivation coming into the tournament. Winning it. Xavier has reached the conference championship game just once since joining the league, that coming in 2015 when the Musketeers lost to Villanova (who else?). But this Xavier team believes it has the pieces to finally take that title this time around. So add it all up, and with DePaul possibly emotionally drained from its big win Wednesday night, everything seemed to be lining up nicely for the Musketeers.
Except DePaul was not having any of it. That little taste of March Magic they got with their frantic-finish win over the Pirates Wednesday night only seemed to whet their appetite for more. This March Madness stuff? Yes, more please. So, if Xavier was serious about possibly capturing that elusive first tournament title, it was going to have to somehow slow down a DePaul team that seemed to be in no particular rush to get back to Chicago.
And somehow, Xavier found a way. In a game that saw the Musketeers lead for just 2:31 in total, they saw Colby Jones answer the bell down stretch as he scored eight of his 22 points in the final 3:38 to help rally the Musketeers to a come-from-behind 89-84 victory over a game DePaul outfit.
Xavier (24-8) moves on to the semifinals for the seventh time and will face the winner of Creighton vs. Villanova in the 9 p.m. contest Friday night.
Jones said Xavier head coach Sean Miller called on him to save the night for the Musketeers and the junior guard delivered the goods.
“He jumped me at halftime and I think that kind of got me going,” Jones said with a laugh. “That’s the relationship we have. I trust him and he trusts me. He called my number in the second half and I just tried to deliver for my team.”
DePaul had held leads as large as 13 points in the game and was still holding an eight-point lead (73-65) with 8:00 to play. The Blue Demons meant business and they weren’t going away. But after some back and forth over the next six minutes, during which the Demons still would not relinquish the lead, Xavier finally broke through. With both Jones and Adam Kumkel (16 points) keeping Xavier close, the Musketeers finally took an 81-80 lead on a Jack Nunge tip-in with 2:03 to play and they never gave it back. It was Xavier’s first lead since the opening minute of the game.
From there, Jones added back-to-back buckets for 85-82 advantage with 41.5 seconds to play and Souley Boum and Nunge closed things out with four free throws in the final 20.8 ticks and it was off to the semifinals for the Musketeers.
“We’re thrilled to still be alive,” MIller said. “We could have easily lost that game. But I think the resiliency of our group, the experience of these guys, sticking with it and finishing the game that quite frankly was not going well for us, was a difficult task. But Colby was really the difference on offense down the stretch.”
Nunge, who finished with a game-high 23 points, said Xavier didn’t come to town for a short stay. They escaped with a win and now it’s time to get back to work Friday night to chase that title dream.
“We’re not coming here to play just one game,” Nunge said. “We’re trying to win it all. No matter who we are going to play, it’s March so records are out the window. We just have to be ready from the jump no matter who we are playing against.”
For DePaul it was still a memorable - if short - stay in New York. There was the joy of the victory over Seton Hall on Wednesday followed by the near stunning upset of the tournament’s No. 2 seed Thursday night. All in all, a solid two-day stay for the Blue Demons (10-23).
“I thought these guys were deserving of winning a basketball game,” DePaul coach Tony Stubblefield said. “We got beat by a very good Xavier basketball team. But I was really proud of our guys for the right they put up tonight.”