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Good road win for X without question. But Wisconsin was not ranked and is not going to win the B10. And I really can't project X to the Final Four based upon November results after playing its first quality opponent.

And in fairness, I'm not ready to put UC in the Final Four either after games against three teams without a pulse. Mick's Sweet Sixteen team lost in November to Presbyterian; a decidedly inferior opponent. So much for the significance of November results, win or lose.

It's a shame we won't have cable/ broadcast TV for the potential Iowa matchup. Next week, we'll learn a lot more about this Bearcat team. It does appear to be Mick's best. But it remains difficult to evaluate given the competition to this point.
I thought Xavier looked good. Nothing different from what I was expecting though. Bluiett and Macura looked good as did Tyrique Jones. But other than that they have a bunch of role players. As long as Evans is playing I think we have a great opportunity to win there for the first time in forever.
I have a feeling we will need to change up the D for that one. Broome is not going to be able to defend Macura or Bluett for whole possessions.
(11-17-2017 08:46 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote: [ -> ]I have a feeling we will need to change up the D for that one. Broome is not going to be able to defend Macura or Bluett for whole possessions.

Broome will guard Goodin or Scruggs. I'd imagine Cumberland, Evans and Williams will handle Macura and Bluiett.
(11-17-2017 08:52 AM)JFlight21 Wrote: [ -> ]
(11-17-2017 08:46 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote: [ -> ]I have a feeling we will need to change up the D for that one. Broome is not going to be able to defend Macura or Bluett for whole possessions.

Broome will guard Goodin or Scruggs. I'd imagine Cumberland, Evans and Williams will handle Macura and Bluiett.

Wisconsin tried that with their wings last night and got eviscerated on screens and switches doing so. I expect both of those guys to have pretty strong games against us.
Not sure how x stops us unless we miss a bunch of open shots. Their defense is still full of holes. Bluett is tough because of his difficult shot making but uc doesn't need its pgs to guard he or macura.
(11-17-2017 09:03 AM)bearcatmark Wrote: [ -> ]Not sure how x stops us unless we miss a bunch of open shots. Their defense is still full of holes. Bluett is tough because of his difficult shot making but uc doesn't need its pgs to guard he or macura.

Watch X run offense the next game they play. They set up the action so that those guys end up in a 30 possession being covered by ones in twos on the back half which is a mismatch they want. We will see Broome on them more than we want.

Using Hugg's theory, let their best player score his. Someone has to score the points. You can't have both of them go off though. Like last year, we win despite Bluett being unconscious but the rest of the team was limited.
(11-17-2017 09:12 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote: [ -> ]
(11-17-2017 09:03 AM)bearcatmark Wrote: [ -> ]Not sure how x stops us unless we miss a bunch of open shots. Their defense is still full of holes. Bluett is tough because of his difficult shot making but uc doesn't need its pgs to guard he or macura.

Watch X run offense the next game they play. They set up the action so that those guys end up in a 30 possession being covered by ones in twos on the back half which is a mismatch they want. We will see Broome on them more than we want.

Using Hugg's theory, let their best player score his. Someone has to score the points. You can't have both of them go off though. Like last year, we win despite Bluett being unconscious but the rest of the team was limited.


I watch a good amount of X. They are a really good to great offensive team (as they were last year). They'll create some issues with matchups against us with what they run, no doubt about it. I think we'll put them in difficult situations as well. I also think we'll find ways to have our best defenders on Bluett most the time. Bluett may still go off, because he can even against great defense, but we'll make them work to get him shots. I think UC has a big front court advantage in the game and still think Xavier is going to have some defensive liabilities like they did last season.
BTW Steve Stricker is very well respected as a high character guy in golf. He's not tweeting that without good cause I'm sure
(11-17-2017 10:10 AM)bearcatmark Wrote: [ -> ]I watch a good amount of X. They are a really good to great offensive team (as they were last year). They'll create some issues with matchups against us with what they run, no doubt about it. I think we'll put them in difficult situations as well. I also think we'll find ways to have our best defenders on Bluett most the time. Bluett may still go off, because he can even against great defense, but we'll make them work to get him shots. I think UC has a big front court advantage in the game and still think Xavier is going to have some defensive liabilities like they did last season.

you talkin' about that elite eight team?
(11-17-2017 10:49 AM)Lush Wrote: [ -> ]
(11-17-2017 10:10 AM)bearcatmark Wrote: [ -> ]I watch a good amount of X. They are a really good to great offensive team (as they were last year). They'll create some issues with matchups against us with what they run, no doubt about it. I think we'll put them in difficult situations as well. I also think we'll find ways to have our best defenders on Bluett most the time. Bluett may still go off, because he can even against great defense, but we'll make them work to get him shots. I think UC has a big front court advantage in the game and still think Xavier is going to have some defensive liabilities like they did last season.

you talkin' about that elite eight team?

They made a nice tournament run by sitting in various weak zones and hoping teams missed outside jumpers. It worked for 3 games and then they got run. If you watched them last year regularly they got torched on defense many times. Their long losing streak was about not being able to defend. Mack ran some nice gimmick defenses in the tournament that were good for protecting the rim (a place they were vulnerable during the year), but gave up a ton of open shots. The teams they played didn't hit them. X was really good on offense last year too, but defense was an issue and its why they struggled most of the season, barely making the tournament. Don't read too much into 3 games when you have an entire body of work to look at.
The X team two years ago that lost in the second round was significantly better than last year's elite eight team. Casual fans just put a ton of weight on the tournament when evaluating a team's season.
(11-17-2017 10:57 AM)bearcatmark Wrote: [ -> ]
(11-17-2017 10:49 AM)Lush Wrote: [ -> ]
(11-17-2017 10:10 AM)bearcatmark Wrote: [ -> ]I watch a good amount of X. They are a really good to great offensive team (as they were last year). They'll create some issues with matchups against us with what they run, no doubt about it. I think we'll put them in difficult situations as well. I also think we'll find ways to have our best defenders on Bluett most the time. Bluett may still go off, because he can even against great defense, but we'll make them work to get him shots. I think UC has a big front court advantage in the game and still think Xavier is going to have some defensive liabilities like they did last season.

you talkin' about that elite eight team?

They made a nice tournament run by sitting in various weak zones and hoping teams missed outside jumpers. It worked for 3 games and then they got run. If you watched them last year regularly they got torched on defense many times. Their long losing streak was about not being able to defend. Mack ran some nice gimmick defenses in the tournament that were good for protecting the rim (a place they were vulnerable during the year), but gave up a ton of open shots. The teams they played didn't hit them. X was really good on offense last year too, but defense was an issue and its why they struggled most of the season, barely making the tournament. Don't read too much into 3 games when you have an entire body of work to look at.

i suppose it's a good time to finally have good offensive players. note, i didn't say a good offense. time will tell how much of a good offensive coach cronin is now that he has capable players
While I think Xavier is very good (definite top 15 squad, maybe even better) it's tough to analyze their performance against Wisconsin as it relates to UC. Macura and Bluiett are great but they dominated that game against a group of small, relatively unathletic wings minus Iverson who often checked Gates. Cumberland and Evans (fingers crossed he is healthy) are a totally different animal and probably the best wing tandem X will see all year.

I honestly think the biggest mismatch on either end will be who guards Clark on X. He should feast on Kaiser Gates and if/when the double team comes, we know how composed Clark is in those situations. I do have a level of concern for Tyrique Jones but I think UC has enough options to neutralize his impact, at least.
(11-17-2017 11:28 AM)JFlight21 Wrote: [ -> ]While I think Xavier is very good (definite top 15 squad, maybe even better) it's tough to analyze their performance against Wisconsin as it relates to UC. Macura and Bluiett are great but they dominated that game against a group of small, relatively unathletic wings minus Iverson who often checked Gates. Cumberland and Evans (fingers crossed he is healthy) are a totally different animal and probably the best wing tandem X will see all year.

I honestly think the biggest mismatch on either end will be who guards Clark on X. He should feast on Kaiser Gates and if/when the double team comes, we know how composed Clark is in those situations. I do have a level of concern for Tyrique Jones but I think UC has enough options to neutralize his impact, at least.

You think they are definite top 15? I think they are top 25... with the talent to be top 15 if they fix the defensive issues that plagued them last season. They'll be one of the best offensive teams in the country though and Bluett is capable of being an All American.
I think they are better than last year. Too early to tell if anyone is rated appropriately.
Wisconsin is always solid but it's still way too early to tell how good they will be this year. They were an 8 seed last year and only returned 1 starter.
X was an 11 seed last year and looked like the same type of team to me. They have played a team with a pulse unlike us but we were significantly better than them last year and I expect we'll be more improved than them .
(11-17-2017 09:01 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote: [ -> ]
(11-17-2017 08:52 AM)JFlight21 Wrote: [ -> ]
(11-17-2017 08:46 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote: [ -> ]I have a feeling we will need to change up the D for that one. Broome is not going to be able to defend Macura or Bluett for whole possessions.

Broome will guard Goodin or Scruggs. I'd imagine Cumberland, Evans and Williams will handle Macura and Bluiett.

Wisconsin tried that with their wings last night and got eviscerated on screens and switches doing so. I expect both of those guys to have pretty strong games against us.

I mean, Blueitt did drop the second most points by a Xavier player in the history of the Crosstown Shootout last year. That's not exactly going out on a limb Rath 03-lmfao
In fairness, Bluiett never had a game like that before or after.
Dude was something crazy, 9-9 initially from 3 before he missed two. He was hitting them the moment he got across the half court line and even when we had someone guarding him, he didn't even need to look at the basket. Just threw them up and they went in. Unconscious with it. I don't think anybody could have shut that down.

As far as how we much up, I think we'll out-rebound and out-muscle them like last season.
Question is, how will they do from 3? They haven't been spectacular with it this season. If you can keep them mortal from 3, I think we win that game.
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