Our most hated rival of yesteryear advanced through the bottom of the bracket so Xavier faces Dayton today at 4:30 (ESPN2). Both team are undefeated, Xavier is a 3 point favorite according to Vegas. This should be a good one!

Check out #ThingsILikeMoreThanDayton on Twitter for some great laughs. Some Dayton fans are going with the classy hashtag of #FUXU so there's that.

Let's GO MUSKIES!!!
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The Advocare Invitional tips off on Thanksgiving with 4-0 Xavier taking on struggling Alabama at Noon. Nationally ranked Wichita State and Notre Dame are also in the bracket, as well as our old foes from Dayton.

Let's go Muskies!!!
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Congrats Dayton. You played up to your potential yesterday. Now I guess you'll go back to varying between mediocre and pathetic the rest of the way.

I can't bear to go through a recap of that one. Let's all just move on and forget about this. I guess Dayton has to win some when the series is at their place so that we can keep calling this a rivalry.
 
I hate Dayton. That is all.

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It has become so commonplace, it doesn't even seem odd anymore. Every year, Dayton has some talented players and high hopes to start the year. A handful of delusional fans claim that this is the year they win their first A10 regular season championship. Then the season starts. The great players only play good. The good players only play average. The team turns to garbage, save a few guys here and there. 

Then comes the home game against Xavier. Dayton's players and fans realize that they can s...
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As we've seen often this year, it didn't look pretty at times but the Muskies got it done. A rough 1st half with Dee Davis in foul trouble put the Muskies behind early. But Semaj Christon and Justin Martin played big last night.

Christon - 19 pts, 5 ast, 2 stl
Martin - 16 pts, 7 reb, 2 blk
Taylor - 10 pts, 9 reb
Robinson - 10 pts in 19 min
Davis - 10 pts, 4 ast in 24 min

That's right, all 5 starters scored in double-digits; a rare feat this year. Also, Redford hit a couple 3s and Landen Amos dunked...
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Wow! What a game! This rivalry never disappoints (unless you're a Dayton fan).

The streak continues. No Dayton wins over Xavier in Cincinnati since 1981.

The Muskies came out swinging and played with energy for 40 minutes. Dayton's hot 3-point shooting kept them right with us but rebounding and second chance points were the difference. XU 66  UD 61. X out-rebounded UD 36 to 18! (Dayton by the way is the #1 rebounding team in the A10, or was before last night) And how about this, the Muskies had...
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The current 2-game slide hurts and while the postseason is not looking probable right now, there's nothing that would feel better than to beat Dayton at home tomorrow night.

Dayton has had some ups and down this season. As of now, they are not a tourney-caliber team but they aren't real far off. Their 3 conference losses are to arguably the best 3 A10 teams. Some solid wins and a good finish in the A10 would likely get them to the big tourney. The good news is that Dayton is just 1-3 in true r...
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I'm getting sick of seeing the Muskies lead and/or be right there for most of a game and then fall apart and lose. Same story again, Semaj and Trav score in double-digits but no one else does and we lose. The offense looks horrendous again, 34% shooting and 1 for 13 on 3s!

With Saturday's loss at St. Joe's, X has now lost 4 of their last 5 on the road. This up and down team is back in the "down" category for now.

Please God let the Cintas Cintas and the home crowd help the Muskies turn it aroun...
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When it comes to rubber matches all bets are off and you can count only on pure mayhem to ensue. The northeastern playground of Atlantic City got all that and more as two foes squared off in a battle royale. Miles from the safe haven of I-75 the battle was waged. The first half was a disaster and looked as if the Dayton Dumpsters would again dash the hopes of the Musketeer faithful. I don't know what was said in that locker room during halftime but the mighty Muskies came back with a vengance...

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Well, we've seen these two play what seems like countless times over the last half decade.  Until last year's train wreck of a game, Xavier has always beaten Dayton in A10 tournament play.

If you don't get the game on TV, you can watch any or all of the games on atlantic.com/allacess for free!

I was going to dive into the stats and break down XU's first game but whenever it's Xavier and Dayton, you can throw all that out the window.  Xavier is probably a little bit more talented than Dayton on ...
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For the 6th time in the last 14 months or so, Xavier and Dayton will play each other.

Last year, you probably remember cursing and yelling as Xavier lost to Dayton in the A10 tourney due to a ridiculous last second foul call.  Let's hope the Muskies fare much better this time around.

Will the Dayton team that beat XU at home or the Dayton team that lost to Rhode Island show up?  Much more to come on the A10 tourney so stay tuned.

Go Muskies!
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I've pasted above just the bottom half of the A10 bracket.  The rest of it only matters if the Muskies win Friday and Saturday.  (Go to the "Info on your Muskies" page to see the full bracket)

For what seems like the millionth time, we could be playing Dayton in the A10 tourney....since Dayton plays 10 times harder against XU than any other opponent, I'd rather not play them in the postseason.  But a win would feel pretty good.  If Dayton does beat GW on Tuesday, this game Friday would be a bu...
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We beat Dayton.  The world as we know it is restored.

The win, combined with UMass losing, put the Muskies alone in 3rd place in the A10.  We square off with UMass on the road Tuesday night.  Until yesterday's 1 point loss to LaSalle, UMass was undefeated on their home court.  Should be another tough game.

Go Muskies!!!
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I'm anxiously awaiting this game.....as far as earning an at-large bid to the Big Dance goes, I think it's a safe bet that the loser of this game is eliminated from being in that debate.

We all know that Xavier has won exactly ZERO A-10 tournaments since the tourney moved to Atlantic City.  All 3 Philly teams are solid this year and I don't want to have to play any of them in their backyard in that tourney.  So, let's take care of business here.

Came across an interesting statistic.  In Dayton'...
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It's been over 30 years since Dayton has beaten Xavier in Cincinnati.  I'll be honest, I'm nervous this year.  We've had some glimpses of greatness, but we've had many stretches where we have not looked close to good.  Who's going to step up and score some points to take the pressure off of Tu and Lyons?  How will we defend the screens and ball movement that allowed UD many 3-pointers last time?  We'll find out soon.

Dayton fell apart after beating us a month ago.  After losing 4 straight thou...
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For the first time in years, all men's practices are closed this week.  Coming off the loss to Temple and leading up to what is now the most important game of the year, Chris Mack said today that practice will be closed this week.

We need a win badly, and it wouldn't feel better to get it against anyone more than Dayton.

A full preview of Dayton vs. Xavier to come later this week.

Go Muskies!
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Rhode Island looks like a gimme game at first glance. The Rams are 5-19 overall. They started out 0-6 in the A10, but have won 2 out of their last 3 (the loss being to red hot Temple) and they have a couple nice wins. Their recent improvements were no doubt correlated with 2 mid-season transfers added to the team.

Andre Malone, who transferred in from Auburn, has scored in double-digits in 5 of the last 6 games. Jimmy Baron (yes, another son of RI coach Jim Baron) transferred in from Virginia,...

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Welp, 3 things went horribly wrong today....
1 - Hedging on picks KILLED us!  Normally this defensive strategy works out pretty well, but we were allowing so many wide open shots off these, it completely killed our chances.
2 - We just plain sucked at Free Throws.  Horrendous!
3 - We got outrebounded, and by a lot.  Really dissapointing.

I've dwelled enough over this crappy game.  It's hard to win games in the Dumpster and we didn't bring out "A" game.  We just need to regroup and focus on the ne...
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This is about as big as a regular season game as you'll find.  Xavier and Dayton are the only A10 teams with 1 loss.  Nine teams have 2 losses so the loser of this one falls right into the midst of a log jam of teams.  Oh and it's Dayton.  Enough said.

Very similar teams, statistically, in this matchup:
XU 13-5, 71.5 pts/gm, 64.6 pts allowed/gm
UD 13-5, 71.0 pts/gm, 65.8 pts allowed/gm

The Flyers are 9-2 at home.  Pretty solid, other than a 29 point beating at the hands of Buffalo (yes, that's a ...
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