Back in mid-November the underdog Muskies beat the heck out of favored Butler at Cintas Center, 62-47. Soon after, Butler started playing at the level most expected, and then some. They beat then # 9 ranked UNC (obviously they were not a top 10 team), #1 ranked Indiana, and #8 (now #1) ranked Gonzaga. Not too shabby. Butler sits at 23-7 and 10-5 in the A10 after dropping games 2 of their last 3. They lost to SLU and VCU before beating UMass. A Xavier win at Butler on their Senior night would ...
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The Seniors stepped up huge on Senior night. I love it! Travis Taylor had one of the best Senior night games in Xavier history. Although X blew a lead late in the 2nd half, they pulled away to win it in overtime.

Taylor played 43 of a possible 45 minutes and had 19 pts, 19 rebs, and 6 blocks! Brad Redford had 11 pts on 3 3-pointers and 2 big free-throws down the stretch and Jeff Robinson had 9 pts and 6 rebs.

Oh, and in his best attempt to be playing like a Senior, Freshman Semaj Christon had 2...
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The season is winding to an end this week. It's not been an ideal season but I still hate to see it come to an end. The last home game is tonight against St. Louis. As it turns out, it also looks like it will be our last ever Atlantic 10 game at home.

St. Louis is playing great basketball. The Billikens have won 11 in a row and are now 12-2 in conference and ranked #16 in the AP poll and #15 in the USA poll. They run deep, playing 9 guys at more than 12mins/gm and having a balanced scoring att...
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With a less than 100% Dee Davis and no Landen Amos, the Muskies couldn't get it done on Saturday. The biggest problem was the 3 point shot. UMass hit 13 of 25 on 3-pointers, accounting for more than half of the Minutemen's points.

With UMass star Chaz Williams in foul trouble most of the game, the Muskies really should've been able to win this game. Semaj played 39 minutes and had 17pts and 6 ast, includ 7-8 from the line. Philmore had 14 and Redford had 13 but the first of the team didn't hav...
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With basically 7 players, the Muskies pulled out a big upset win over Memphis on Tuesday night!

Everybody stepped up huge in Dee and Landen's absence.

Semaj started off slow shooting but came up big down the stretch - 13 pts, 5 reb, 5 ast, only 1 turnover
Redford - 32 big minutes of the bench (only Semaj played more) - 10 pts
Travis Taylor - the man! Despite sitting a lot of the 1st half with 2 early fouls, 18 pts, 10 pts, 2 blks
Philmore - big game! 15 pts, 6 rebs, 2 blks
Robinson - 8 pts on 3/4 s...
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The Muskies put together a solid 2nd half to beat the Rhody Rams 55-42. Travis Taylor was great in the paint, 13 pts and 17 rebs! Semaj Christon had 16 pts & 7 rebs.

No one else scored more than 7 for X but it was enough as the Muskies played nice defense against at already-woeful offense. The Rams shot just 24% from the field, and 17% from 3.

Nice win Muskies! Next up is a real tough one at home, VCU on Saturday at 2pm.

Go Muskies!

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It wasn't a pretty win, but a win nonetheless. The Muskies won on the road against Duquesne in front of a pretty sparse crowd. I'd guess there were no more than 3 or 4 thousand in attendance with about a third of us being X fans!

Balanced scoring was a pleasant surprise Saturday. How about these 4 guys stepping it up?!
Semaj 16 pts, 8 ast, 7 reb, 2 stl (and just 1 turnover)
Philmore 16 pts and 6 rebs, went 8-12 on FTs
Martin 15 pts on 6-9 shooting, 8 rebs
Taylor 13 pts on 5-7 shooting, 12 rebs
 
Dee...
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The 73-71 loss was painful, as usual, but particularly more because of our horrible free throwing shooting. 

Travis Taylor was dominant, 9 for 11 shooting for 24 pts and 8 rebs. Semaj scored 15, Philmore 10, and Robinson and Davis 8 each AND we shot 60% from the field! And we lost!

The biggest reason was that we shot 64% from the line while Richmond shot 80%.

Very frustrating loss. We have a week to recover before heading to Pittsburgh to play Duquesne next Saturday.

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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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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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The Muskies couldn't have looked any worse on Wednesday at Charlotte, bringing their 4 game win streak to an end. 

Can they turn it around against St. Joe's? The Hawks are always tough at home and their mascot is always annoying. St. Joe's has a shot-blocking machine in C.J. Aiken. Aiken is blocking 3.1 shots/gm in addition to 11.9 pts/gm and 6 reb/gm. If you watched Wednesday's titanic struggle, you saw the Muskies get swatted 10 times. We better start trying some pump-fakes and stop taking i...
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That was 40 minutes of ugly. Plain and simple. The Muskies and 49ers traded the lead for most of the game and X ended up losing 63-57. Semaj Christon and Travis Taylor were great - They each scored 18 pts, each had 3 steals, and Taylor had 11 boards while Semaj had 5. The rest of the team was apparently sleep-walking.

While Trav and Semaj shot a combined 17-32, the rest of the team shot 8-36!!! The foul disparity didn't help our cause. X was called for 27 fouls vs Charlotte's 15. And the 49ers...
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The Muskies have not had a lot of success at Charlotte recently. Former XU coach and not Hair Club for Men member, Alan Major, and the 49ers have won 2 of their last 3 home games against Xavier. They are 9-0 at home this year and 15-3 overall. They come into tomorrow's game as a 3 point favorite over X.

Charlotte is heading to Conference USA next year so unless we meet them in the A10 tourney in March, this could be our last match-up for quite a while. The 49ers, like the Muskies, are a good r...
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Although it looked ugly at the beginning when LaSalle jumped out to a 20-9 lead, the Muskies played great to close the 1st half and then ran away with the game on Saturday.

It was another all-around effort by X. Dee Davis played in his first game back and appeared able to use his injured wrist without any problems; he scored 6 on 2-3 shooting and had 7 assists in 23 minutes. Semaj had 18 points and 5 assists on an impressive 8-11 shooting. Redford had 13 pts, Robinson had 10 pts & 6 rebs, and ...
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Wow that game was crazy, way too nerve-racking! Semaj had 19 points and 10 assists, Redford had 17 points, and Taylor had 11 points and 7 rebounds.

How about the Muskies on the glass? Overall, they won the rebuilding 26-21 and won on the offensive glass 12-5.

Christon was 7 for 9 from the line and hit the game winner with 5 seconds left.

The Muskies are 3-0 in the A10! WOOHOO! Next up, a home game at 2pm on Saturday vs LaSalle.

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Dee Davis' wrist is in bad shape so Xavier had just 2 guards for today's game vs GW but those guards played huge! Brad Redford scored 21 off of 7 for 8 shooting from 3! Semaj Christon scored 21 and had 7 assists. And Jeff Robinson got the start and had 14 pts and 6 rebounds. Add in Travis Taylor's 6 pts and 11 boards and the team played quite a game today.

Congrats Muskies, 2-0 to start the A10 season! Let's hope Davis can play next week.

Next up - Wed at 8pm on the road at St. Bonnie

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Our 4th lost in a row came to Wake Forest last night, giving us our longest losing streak since the 1999-2000 season. As we've seen in the every game since our win at Purdue, the Muskies had long stretches of no offense.

Travis Taylor scored 18 points on 9 of 10 shooting and grabbed 10 rebounds. But 16 of those points were in the first half, the Muskies couldn't get Taylor the ball in the 2nd half. Everyone else struggled to score. Jeff Robinson did get 10 pts and 6 rebs after not playing at a...
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This is just getting too hard to watch. The Muskies finally make some free throws and go hard to the glass to dominate in rebounding but go on to blow a big 2nd half lead again! 

Other than Travis Taylor and Erik Stenger, I don't think anyone for Xavier can be counted on right now. Taylor had 12 pts and 7 rebs in 22 minutes of play due to foul trouble and Stenger had 6 pts and 8 rebs in just 20 minutes. We had 19 turnovers! Some of those were due to good defense by the Vols but many of those w...
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AHHHHHH!!! Despite Travis Taylor's 20 pts and 11 rebs and a 12 point halftime lead, the Muskies fell apart in the 2nd half and lost to Wofford, 56-55. Almost no students there due to Winter Break and many season ticket holders for this one; that certainly didn't help the effort.

Two Brad Redford's three-pointers brought the Muskies back and tied the game in the closing seconds. But Jeff Robinson fouled Lee Skinner after he received the in-bounds pass with 8 seconds left. WHAAAAAAAAT! Skinner m...
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Well, to say that was disappointing would be an understatement. We did play solid defense most of the night. The Muskies played tough and led at the half despite missing all their 1st half free throws! The 2nd half was horrendous though. Justin Martin with 2 quick fouls in the first 3 minutes of the game and then quick ones to start the 2nd half kept him out most of the game; he scored zero points. Cramping injuries kept our main scoring threat, Semaj Christon, out the 2nd half and kept Dee D...
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Semaj Christon, Dee Davis, and Brad Redford accounted for 42 of Xavier's 62 points in a 62-55 win over Kent St. We didn't look great as was expected with Justin Martin sidelined (concussion). But Semaj scored 18 to lead the Muskies in scoring again, Redford had 14 points (4 of 5 shooting from 3), and Davis had 10 points and 4 assists.

Throw in 9 and 8 rebounds from Travis Taylor and Isaiah Philmore respectively and it was enough to get the win. The Muskies did lose the battle of the boards (36...
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Just about the whole team played horrendous at one point or another to manage to lose a double-digit lead and go down at home to Tennesse in overtime on Thursday.

It was a very ugly game but looked like the Muskies could coast to a win when they were up 40-27 four minutes into the 2nd half. Then they played like crap in most every aspect of basketball. The Muskies made just 9 of 17 free throws. The defense only allowed 54 points in regulation but gave up 12 points to Kyle Fuller in overtime. T...
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What a frustrating game to watch! The Muskies start off 9-0 and then look pretty bad the rest of the game. While Semaj Christon (18 pts, 6 asts) and Travis Taylor (13 pts on 5-8 shooting) played well, most of the team didn't seem to ever get into the flow of the game. We shot 48% and only turned the ball over 8 teams but allowed Pacific to shoot 57% and were out-rebounded 28 to 17. Brad Redford was never open and took one shot and Jeff Robinson only took 3 shots all day. Not the recipe for su...
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The Muskies shocked the Bulldogs today. Xavier, a 5 point underdog a home, looked like the experienced team and shut down Butler defensively.

It was a great effort all around by the whole team. Dee Davis did an amazing job slowing down Butler's star shooter, Rotnei Clark, and added 9 points. Semaj Christon hadn't been at practice for several days before yesterday and looked a little in his debut but still had an impressive 8 assists off the bench. Jeff Robinson 17 pts/8 reb and Travis Taylor h...
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With only 7 scholarship players available, the Muskies went crazy in their regular season debut, pouring on the offense and beating Fairleigh Dickinson 117-75! All 7 scholarship players scored in double figures. 

Highlights:
- Dee Davis had an unreal first half, 14 pts and 12 asts, and finished with 22 pts and 15 asts. 
- Travis Taylor almost had a double-double in the first half as well and finished with 20 pts and 12 rebs.
- Brad Redford was 6 for 7 shooting, all 3-pointers, and had a 4 point p...
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