Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tomorrow, Xavier battles Marquette in a matchup between the Muskies
and the twenty fifth ranked Warriors. I still call them the Warriors.
That is going to be at two thirty tomorrow, so
we will basically be on the air for much of
that game and have instant reaction from MSG immediately afterward.
(00:21):
On Wednesdays, our buddy Rick Boring joins US Musketeer Report
dot Com, NKU radio, host of The Darren Horn Show,
The King of Facebook, The Skinny Podcast, and so much more.
High Rick.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Name for a second that I thought Sean and the
Boys were gonna be facing Steph Curry.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah, I'm sorry, there's still you know, of all the
and they became the Golden Eagles like twenty five thirty
years ago. And I don't do this because yeah, I
don't do this because I'm politically incorrect, but like, like
I have no problem calling Miami University the RedHawks, like
that's that's who they are, the Saint John, Saint John's
(01:01):
Red Storm, the Red Storm. The one that I constantly
get stuck on is Marquette because they were the Warriors
when I was growing up. And I don't call them
the Warriors, just because I insist on being politically incorrect.
I legitimately just sometimes forget because I'm a dunce.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I did it. It happens to the best of us.
With conference realignment, it's a constant issue.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yes, yes, it is. Xavier split with Marquette this year,
each team winning on the other's home floor. That game here,
x you made a late comeback at the end, got
a bad whistle, lose, and then go there and score
just fifty seven points and win. Uh Marquette. Down the
stretch they lose their last two to Yukon and Saint John's.
(01:43):
There's nothing to be ashamed of there. It did feel
like the air came out of the balloon midway through
the Big Eie season. Why did it?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, it's an interesting question, you know. The one thing
to look at is the way the schedule set up
for these two teams. I mean, we talked all year
about how Xavier was like really strung when we were
back in January, and then all of a sudden, Xavier
caught fire at the end of the year. But in reality,
the schedule was really difficult in terms of the Big
East Conference schedule. It was really front loaded for them
(02:12):
early and the back end was much easier and they
handled that well. For Marquette it was the opposite. They
had an early schedule easy and then a really difficult
schedule late and I think that caught up to them
a bit. But I also think in the Big East
Conference where you play that double round robin and every
team has seen Cam Jones for a couple of years already,
(02:34):
he was like the best player in college basketball in
the non conference slate that no one could stop. He
was average like thirty points a game or something. Coming
into the Big East play that the Big East teams
came up with a game plan for him, and that
made Marquette a little more stagnant on the offensive end.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
How did the musket Teers beat him on a neutral floor, Well.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I think they have to mucket up again and make
it ugly. It comes down to the last game. They
were able to slow Cam Jones down. They held him
to eleven point He was just one of six from
three point range in that game. And there's a really
interesting matchup thing to watch in this game. Last time,
Xavier did something defensively with Davion mckknight, their point guard,
where they stuck him on Marquette's biggest player, their center,
(03:18):
Ben Gold, is six foot eleven. Davion mckknight six foot
They had him guarding a six to eleven center because
Ben Gold typically just goes sets the screen and then
pops to the perimeter looking to shoot a three. And
what Xavier was looking to do was instead of trying
to maneuver and handle all those screens, they just switched
it right away. And then they had Davion McKnight their
(03:39):
point guard, guarding Cam Jones, one of the best downhill
drivers in the country coming off that screen. And so
it worked really well. Like I said, they were able
to limit Cam Jones with that game plan. The question
is if you go back, do you go back to
it in the matchup tomorrow? And if so, you know
Shaka Smart and his coaching staff have been working on
(03:59):
a counter for that. So what does that look like
and does that force Xavier to adjust then? And how
do we go from there? So, I mean that game
plan was beautiful. It worked really well for Xavier last time.
It made it really ugly and they were able to
squeak out a two point win. Will that be enough
again tomorrow when they're at Madison square guard.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So I know the results of games involving teams like
North Carolina and Ohio State, Oklahoma. Oklahoma's playing Georgia, who
could use a win tonight in Texas Boise Stata. I
know games involving those teams could go at least a
little bit of a ways toward answering this question. But
I think for most of us it feels like win
and in tomorrow for Xavier. Is that the case in
(04:39):
your opinion?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah, I don't know about that necessarily. I think it
probably depends on how they've viewed Xavier right now. And
all the people who do this every year and put
together this bracketology projections and follow it much more closely
than I do, seem to believe that Xavier is on
the right side of the cut line, but just barely
(05:03):
one of the last few teams in and so I
will agree with them on that. And then the question
from there becomes do you have bid thieves? And I
think you know one thing that's helped Zager out a
little bit over the last twenty four hours is they've
actually picked up a second quad one win here because
(05:23):
I believe it was who was it, Creighton or Yukon
slid back into a quad one game, so one of
their wins now to get the win at home over
Yukon slid back into a quad one win. So Xavier
now has two quad one wins as opposed to just one,
so that that will help them on their resume. That
(05:45):
was really the biggest glaring red flag when you looked
at Zager's NCAA tournament resume for an at large bid.
With the second quad one win, that makes it look
a little bit better for them. I think the biggest
concern I would have if I was a Xavier fan
is what does this North Carolina team do and what
does Texas do? I think Xavier's pretty clearly ahead of
(06:06):
North Carolina. With Texas. You would think they are because
Texas has a seventeen and fourteen overall record, But if
they really factor in conference tournaments as much as we
think they do as fans, if Texas picks up two
more quad one wins in the SEC tournament, which both
of their first two games in the tournament would be
quad one opportunities, they'd get up to nineteen total wins
(06:29):
and they'd have a seven and eleven record in quad
one games. That'd be hard to overlook when we're talking
about a team with very similar metrics to Xavier, So
that would probably be my biggest concern. But right now,
without you know, multiple bid ths, we're talking like three
four bid ths. I think Xavier is in the tournament.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yeah, Texas literally just tipped off a minute ago. Carolina
is up nineteen on Notre Dame in the ACC tournament
and would play Georgia Tech if they hold on tomorrow.
I have asked you throughout the course of the season
at different points, is Xavier good? And I think when
you have gone more than a month without losing a game,
the answer is yes, you're good. If they win tomorrow,
(07:11):
do we start to slide them into the category of
quote teams you don't want to see in March?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I think you kind of have to write there always
seems to be that play in eleven seed type team
that makes some noise in the tournament and at least
scare some people if not makes the deep run. Right now,
out of the teams that are on that cut line,
Xavior seems to be the hottest of those teams. So
I think that's a fair thing to say about this group,
(07:41):
and no I wrote this. You gave me the prompt
for Facebook to write about whether or not they should
expand the NCAA tournament, and I wrote about the fact
that with the transfer portal and the way it's changed
the sport so much, the fact that you're going to
turn over a lot of your roster from year to year.
I I think we're going to see more cases like Xavier,
(08:02):
where it takes you some time to develop and gel
together as a group. Maybe it didn't click for certain
guys right away that you were counting on that were
transferring in, and maybe you had a front loaded schedule,
but then all of a sudden you get it going
and you end up being one of the more talented
teams in your conference and potentially even the country. So
it wouldn't surprise me if Zager ends up being a
dangerous team late in the year. Here.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
So I read your piece and you know, I am emphatic.
I don't want to see it expanded. You're a little
bit more lukewarm on the overall topic, but in writing
about it, you made the case for something that I
just I failed to believe what actually happened. So you
could sway me on the idea of expansion if you
could promise me it was fewer schools with the resume
(08:46):
of let's just use them for an example. Cincinnati, the
Bearcats are not an NCAA tournament team, do not deserve
to be an NCAA tournament team. I don't want more
teams that finish seven and thirteen in their league in
major conferences. Not convinced that expansion would mean that more
bids would be given to mid majors and low majors.
(09:06):
If you can convince me of that, I'd be a
little bit more open minded. I don't think you can
convince me that that would be the driver behind expansion.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I agree with you there. I do not believe in
my heart of hearts that that's what would actually happen.
In fact, we know it's not what would happen, because
it's not who controls the sport. The SEC in the
Big ten pretty much control everything right now, and they
would just be trying to think of as many loop
wormholes that they can to get their teams into the tournament,
(09:36):
and fewer mid major teams in. So I'm with you there.
I would be all for it, though, as I wrote
in that post that if you could guarantee me a
few things for mid majors, like, give me a pool
of at large bids for just mid major teams. Give
me if you're gonna expand the tournament and you're gonna
add some more spots, set aside a feel of them
(09:57):
for just at large bids for the mid majors that,
like we at least don't leave in Indiana stayed out
like last year, right, Teams like that should never be
left out of the tournament. And if expanding the tournament
a little bit guarantees a team like that won't be
left out, then I'm okay with putting up with a
few more mediocre, middling high major teams playing a few
(10:18):
more games during March. I mean, bad basketball is still
basketball during March.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I was listening and unfortunately the North lost the game
in Cleveland and the quarterfinals of the Horizon League Tournament.
I want to talk about the offseason for NKU basketball,
but first that game in Cleveland. I listened to the
entire second half and it felt like every time a
free throw was being shot, there was a woman in
the background screaming like she was being stabbed. Did you
hear that?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I believe I did. I was not able to check
on her, but I never saw any type of medics calls,
commotion behind us, or anything. So I think she ended
up being okay.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
But you know the piercing screen that I'm referring to, correct.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, yeah, I heard it.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Oh yeah, sounded like she was sitting right next to you.
I thought it was your engineer or something. It's sound
like you're saying right next to you, guys.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Well it was that was That was actually just Kelt
taking off his headset in between you know, Gray turn
like exercise the vocal courts from time to time.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
What is this offseason going to look like for NKU basketball?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
That's a that's a great question, Mo. It's so hard
to know in the transfer portal era and the era.
What we do know is that Trey Robinson is going
to be gone after five years. It's going to be
strange to see NK you take the court without Trey Robinson.
Sam Vinson is in theory out of eligibility, but last
season he missed a large percentage do that a cl injury?
(11:46):
They have appealed to the NC Double A to try
to get that year of eligibility back with a red shirt.
It remains to be seen what will happen there. And
then if he does come, if he does get that
year of eligibility back, will he decide to come back
to NKU or would he looked to the potential transfer.
But that's going to be a huge storyline. The other
one that now looks really big for m K was
Dan Gorezger, the Division two transfer who came up and
(12:09):
really struggled early in the year, and then late January
they kind of pushed him back into the lineup and said, hey,
we don't have a choice. Our upside is for you
playing better, and three games or so later, he really
took off and averaged sixteen points per game over the
final eleven when NKU went eight and three over that stretch.
He shot over forty five percent from three point range
(12:31):
during those eleven games, So obviously his numbers aren't great overall,
but he put something on film at the end of
the year that could entice some other teams. So keeping
Dan Gerezger to give you something at point guard going
into next year is a huge storyline of the offseason.
And then from there you have a couple more guys
that could come back in LJ Wells, Randall, Pettis, Kean A.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Tzera.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Those are kind of the main names that you look
to that'll have to make a decision about the transfer portal.
But I think the thing is Dan Dezra and Sam Benson.
If you can get those two guys back, you have
some really nice building blocks.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
For next year. Have you been given the invite to
join me at the Holy Grail Thursday morning next Thursday morning.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I have not been officially given one, but I mark
it off every year. I always love that show.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I'll see you then.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I appreciate it. Thank you.