Featured Stories
Musketeers in a zone
By Katie Budke, CNATI.com Posted November 18, 2009 1:57 AM ET
While the Xavier Musketeers weren't perfect in Tuesday's home contest against Bowling Green, there was little to complain about in their 101-57 walloping of the Falcons.
For the past two days, coach Chris Mack and his Musketeers (2-0) spent practice time working to improve their zone offense, and it showed against the defending Mid-American Conference Champions leading by as many as 47.
"I really dedicated the last couple of days to getting our zone offense better and working on what we wanted to do and executing it," Mack said. "I thought offensively we were as good as we could be in the first half at finding shooters, getting the ball to the middle of the zone and making plays."
In that first half, the Musketeers took advantage of open looks from behind the perimeter and drained timely threes while shooting 64.3% from behind the arc to build a 51-28 halftime lead. A 12-0 run by Xavier was key to their 23-point halftime advantage. Terrell Holloway ignited the run by sinking a fast-break jumper with 6:19 left in the first half and later a 3-pointer. Sophomore Brad Redford's 3-pointer to cap off the drive and put Xavier up 41-25. Redford finished the game with 12 points going 4-for-4 on 3-point attempts in the first half.
From that point on, the Falcons (1-1) were simply overmatched.
Jordan Crawford put the exclamation point on a solid first half offensive performance by beating the buzzer with a 3-pointer for the Musketeers. Crawford led Xavier with 15 first half points.
And to Mack's satisfaction, they didn't back down in the second half surpassing the century mark in points for the first time since January of 2008 on junior Andrew Taylor's 3 with just more than a minute to play.
"In the second half I was really proud of our team. I talked a little bit about not having that killer instinct against Youngstown State," Mack Said. "That certainly wasn't the case tonight as the second half almost mirrored the first half in terms of point totals and the margin. Tonight was about our team and improving and I was happy to see it."
The Xavier offense shot 64.8% from the field (35-of-54) and had five players in double figures while limiting the Falcons to a 36.9% shooting percentage and outrebounding them 43-26. Crawford led the Musketeer attack with a career-high 24 points.
The sophomore guard, who is in his debut season with the Musketeers after transferring from Indiana University and sitting out the 2008-2009 season to earn eligibility, had 14 points and five rebounds in the season-opener. Dissatisfied with his performance in Xavier's win against Youngstown State University, Crawford worked hard between games. Mack was impressed by Crawford's standards.
"Give Jordan credit, he wasn't happy with his performance in game one, got in the gym with coach Steele outside of practice and really worked on things ... finishes around the basket, pull-ups, things I thought he brought tonight and that's what a good player does," Mack said. "When you don't have a good game, you get back in the gym and try to improve yourself, and he made quite an improvement from game one to game two. "
After the game, senior big man Jason Love compared this year's Xavier squad that feeds off a fast-paced game to the 2007-2008 Musketeers that advanced to the Elite Eight before falling to top-seeded UCLA.
"It reminds of my sophomore year, that team we had scored 100 points a couple times. It's kind of the same with having experienced guards with Terrell (Holloway), Jordan (Crawford) and Dante (Jackson) just being able to push the pace offensively and really find guys, having game-changers like Crawford and Redford," said Love, who notched a double-double with 12 points and 12 rebounds. "Sky's the limit for this team."
His coach agreed with the comparison and has high standards in his debut season as head coach.
"When you have quickness like we have, we have a point guard that played last year in Terrell Holloway that throws the fire, you have a Superball in Mark Lyons who pings around the basketball, you have a chance to be a team that can really attack in transition," Mack said. "You worry a little bit about our big guys and we don't have 5 or 6 of them to rotate in, you worry a little bit about their conditioning, their fatigue. What we try to do as coaches is always try to rotate a fresh big guy in and keep up with the pace. When we have to set up shop, we'll do that, but offensively I want to be a team that pushes the ball and beats the other team in transition."
On Tuesday night they did just that scoring 23 point s off the fast break. The Musketeers will try to duplicate their dominating performance Saturday at 7:30 p.m. when they host Sacred Heart.
"The sky's the limit, if we buy in defensively and come ready to defend every night," Love said. "Offensively, we have so many weapons."
Categories: College, Featured Stories, Men's Basketball, News, Xavier Musketeers
Tags: Bowling Green, Brad Redford, Chris Mack, Jason Love, Jordan Crawford, Mark Lyons, Musketeers, Terrell Holloway, Xavier
Comments (2)
I thought the guys really put together a solid game tonight. I don't know how good Bowling Green really is, but Xavier really showcased what it can do tonight.
One more warm-up before Orlando. That's when we really find out some things about this team.
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It's sounding like Mack is one of the more quotable, colorful coaches we've had around here. He even tweets on a regular basis. Good stuff.
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