Friday, March 01, 2002
DAUGHERTY: How good is X?
Who knows?
By Paul Daugherty
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Now they're playing for seeding in the NCAA Tournament. Xavier has established itself as the best team in the Atlantic 10. That's like being the best anchovy on an extra-large pizza. The A-10 is so down, it couldn't see up with a telescope.
But you play who's on the schedule, which means that if you're Xavier, you're playing against your own potential. “Our thing now is to finish strong,” said David West, who remembers last year, when the Muskies tanked in March. “What separates the good and bad teams is the good teams are still winning, the bad teams are tailing off. We want to continue to get better.”
With limited sweating, the Musketeers pummeled LaSalle Thursday. The Explorers, RPI 147, are about the seventh-best team in the A-10, which means you need a miner's helmet to find them. Beating a team that has lost to Delaware and Alabama State doesn't shine much of a light on your own potential.
Then again, the way college basketball is now, any win is worth mentioning.
Who's good?
“Duke,” David West decided.
Duke is the only team driving a Lexus. Duke is the platinum card, the first row at the Streisand concert, the best table at Spago. Anyone else?
“Kansas,” said West. “And, umm, Cincinnati is pretty good.”
Maryland is good. Oklahoma, Florida, Alabama. And...
“I don't know,” said West.
It's a weird year. After the first seven or eight, you can take the next 25 teams and sit them on the same bench. That includes Xavier. Given the pick 'em nature of the field, there is no reason the X-men can't be an X-factor in the Madness. There's no reason the Muskies can't be a Gonzaga-in-waiting.
Xavier is sound fundamentally. In West, it has the money player teams need to do well in March. It has Lionel Chalmers, the point guard, who has gone from a guy who dribbled too much and created too little to a better-than-average floor leader.
Chalmers had 10 points in the first half Thursday, on 4-of-7 shooting. He also had four rebounds, four assists and no turnovers. When Xavier needed a tone set early, Chalmers drove for a layup, assisted on another and drilled two 3-pointers, as the Muskies took a 25-15 lead.
Rule 1 in March is good teams have good point guards. So is Rule 2.
The Muskies are well-coached. They don't do dumb things. “We're just solid,” West said. “We could hurt teams a lot of different ways. We're scrappy. We try to run our (offense) as close to perfection as possible.”
They're angling for at least a No.6 seed in the Madness — which they'll get if they win the league tournament — and a legitimate hope of doing some surprise damage. The difference between a sixth and a ninth seed is monumental. As West noted, “When you're an 8 or a 9, you have to play a 1 in the (second) round.”
Which doesn't help Cinderella's chances.
For years, Xavier came to the tournament and scared the big boys on the first weekend. Now, the Muskies would like to do the same in the regionals. It's a huge step. It's right there for them.
How good is Xavier? “We're pretty good,” West said.
So is everyone else. It's a fat list of pretty-goods. If Xavier ever had a chance to be a little better than that, this is it.
Contact Paul Daugherty at 768-8454; fax: 768-8550; e-mail: pdaugherty@enquirer.com.
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DAUGHERTY: How good is X?
