Just one thing here: Xavier Basketball

Most everyone knows the story of Lauren Hill, the amazingly positive, strong teenager who has terminal brain cancer but is living every day to the fullest.  The game that Xavier hosted on Sunday was one of the coolest things I've ever been a part of. The awareness that Lauren is raising for pediatric cancer is nothing short of remarkable.

Coach Mack describes Lauren better than I can...please read his words here:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaw/2014/11/02/college-basketball-xavier-chris-mack-lauren-hill/18382929/

Kudos to Xavier for hosting the game, playing a very small part in this very big deal. Please consider bidding on a #22 jersey here and/or donating to The Cure Starts Now Foundation here:
http://www.thecurestartsnow.org/

Musketeer Madness has finally arrived!  Cintas Center tonight!


Update - Coach Mack and his daughter came out and rapped the Beastie Boys for their introduction.

J.P. Macura won the 3-pt contest, Makinde London and Jalen Reynolds tied with all "10"s in the slam dunk final, and there was a lively scrimmage where all the scholarship guys played.

Great stuff, come on regular season!!!

Go Muskies!!!

We're counting down our top 5 favorite Muskies of the past 10 seasons and this guy was an easy choice. Justin Cage! Cage played 2003-2004 through 2006-2007. In short, he was THE MAN! He managed to start half the games as a Freshman and then EVERY game the rest of his career at X! In total, he started 113 of 131 games.

Cage's Freshman year was a memorable one for Muskies fans. X crushed the #1 team in the country, St. Joe's, en route to winning the A10 Tournament and then beat Louisville, Mississippi State, and Texas in the Big Dance before narrowly losing to #1 seed Duke in the Elite 8. His Senior year ended on a sour note for us all as the Muskies fell to #1 seed Ohio State in Round 2 of the tourney. Ohio State went all the way to the title game before losing to Florida.

Cage was the model of consistency over his 4 years at Xavier, averaging more than 10 points a game for his last 3 seasons. He finished with a shooting percentage of 54.3%, 1,181 points and 641 rebounds. Never overly flashy, never putting himself before the team, he is one of the all-time Xavier greats in my mind. Thanks Justin!

There have been a lot of smart, team-first players over the years at Xavier. One of the best examples has to be Brian Thornton. The big man transferred to Xavier after 2 years at Vanderbilt. He made a big impact as a Junior, averaging 10.7 pts and 5.8 rebs per game. He was a model of consistency his Senior year (2005-2006 season), going for 15.3 pts and 6.8 rebs per night (both led the team) before rupturing his ankle near the end of the season in an Atlantic 10 game against LaSalle. I remember how bummed I was that Thornton was out. The Muskies rallied after Brian's injury and made the NCAA Tournament. To jog your memory, they were (in my opinion) screwed over and given a #14 seed, to play out west against Gonzaga, narrowly losing to the whiny Adam Morrison and his squad.

Thornton has the record for best field goal percentage over 2 years at Xavier, at 61.9%. His Senior year, he shot 64%, 1st in A-10, top 10 in nation. Now that's efficient!  Maybe, most impressive, he was named ESPN The Magazine CoSIDA Second Team Academic All-American, the first Xavier men's basketball student-athlete to earn Academic All-American honors. He also earned Atlantic 10 Conference Student-Athlete of the Year and Academic All-Atlantic 10 both years at Xavier.

Brian, after being on Xavier's coaching staff for 2 years and then Winthrop's for 2, is now Assistant Coach at Ball State under former Xavier Asst Coach, James Whitford. Thanks for the good memories and best of luck to Brian and Ball State this year!

We're counting down our favorite Muskies of the last 10 seasons and there's no better place to start than with Jason Love.

Jason played for Xavier for 4 years from 2006-2007 through 2009-2010. He is the perfect example of a Xavier basketball player. The Philly native was under the radar when D1 coaches were recruiting his class. His Freshman year, he played a total of 76 minutes. But as many had before him, he worked hard and practiced against the big men in front of him and steadily received more and more playing time. By his Senior year, he was a major key to Xavier's success. His progression in minutes per game each year was 4.0 / 18.0 / 21.7 / 27.8; points per game:1.1 / 6.0 / 6.7 / 11.8; rebounds per game: 1.1 / 5.5 / 5.9 / 8.7 .  Jason Love is the winning-est Musketeer of all time, meaning that he was part of more wins (108) than anyone in school history! His teams also won 8 NCAA Tournament games, also most in XU history. 

Thanks to Jason for all the hard work he did at X and the great impressions he's left on Xavier. Best of luck to him as he continues to play professionally in Belgium and makes us proud!