Xavier Quotes | Butler Quotes | Box Score

By SEAN BRENNAN
BIGEAST.com
 
If Xavier were to pull off a victory over Butler in Wednesday’s BIG EAST Tournament opener there were a number of ways the Musketeers could have gone about it.
 
Maybe Xavier’s Quincy Oiivari, the conference’s leading scorer, would erupt for another epic game like the 43-point night he laid on DePaul earlier this year. After all, Olivari had said leading up to the BIG EAST Tournament that he and the Musketeers were not just happy coming to New York for a quick trip and a quicker tourney exit. No, Olivari said he and the X-men planned on staying a while and shaking things up.
 
But maybe it wasn’t going to be Olivari. Maybe Dayvion McKnight would perform some tourney heroics and help drag Xavier across the finish line against a Bulldogs team which defeated the Musketeers by four just a week ago.
 
Or maybe it would be Desmond Claude, one of the lone holdovers from last year’s Sweet 16 team and the newly-minted BIG EAST Most Improved Player.
 
Or maybe it was just a lethal combination of all three.
 
Claude, McKnight and Olivari combined to score all but 11 of Xavier’s points as the Musketeers got six straight points from McKnight in the last 2:01 to finally pull away from Butler as they posted a hard-fought 76-72 victory over the Bulldogs to advance to Thursday’s quarterfinal round.
 
Ninth-seeded Xavier (16-16) will face top-seeded UConn Thursday at noon.
 
“They’ve carried the water for our team perhaps more than any three have in the BIG EAST,” Xavier head coach Sean Miller said of his talented trio. “Their individual performance - I don’t even have to look - It’s probably somewhere between 60, 65 of the 76 points. It’s been that way every game and today was no different.” 
 
After Xavier went off at halftime up, 32-31, after a tightly-played first half, it was more of the same in the second half as neither team could manage to build more than a five-point lead when the Musketeers held a 61-56 advantage after a layup by Olivari with 8:49 to play. But Butler wouldn’t go away quietly.
 
The Bulldogs went about methodically trimming the Xavier lead, and when Posh Alexander tossed in a short jumper with 2:19 to play, the Xavier lead was 69-68 and the game was left awaiting a savior.
 
It turned out to be McKnight, as he scored six straight points for Xavier in a span of 1:08 with his last bucket giving the Musketeers a 75-68 lead with 53.1 to play. Only then did Butler run out of gas and Xavier was moving on to the quarters.
 
Olivari, who had 11 of his 19 points in the second half, rather enjoyed his first experience of playing at Madison Square Garden.
 
“Man, it was a great feeling,” Olivari said. “As a basketball player, this is like one of the dreams of where you want to be and play. Even when we first got here, I was the first one on the court and I just took a long walk out on the court, headphones off, just to soak the whole moment in and be able to just realize that this is real - like I’m here.”  
Claude finished with a game-high 26 points and McKnight added 20 for Xavier while Pierre Brooks led Butler (18-14) with 21 points to lead five Butler players who finished in double figures.
 
Now it’s on to face UConn. The Musketeers dropped a five-point decision to the Huskies at home in early January before being steamrolled in a 43-point loss at UConn later that month. So what does Miller expect in Thursday’s matchup with the nation’s No. 2 ranked team?
 
“The first time we played them, it seems like a year ago, it was a hard-fought game at the Cintas Center. And if you watch UConn, they have a way of putting you away and that’s what they did,” Miller said. “The second game, I don’t really have words to describe it. They overwhelmed us at the tip…they’re terrific on offense. They’re terrific on defense. I can’t give them any more superlatives. But what I can say is we have to be ready to play the game and be at our best and that’s our goal.”