Game Thread: Xavier @ Dayton (Saturday 2/16/13)

[Muskeagle]

Good win for the Flyers. Ugly game for X...but a lot of credit has to go to the UD defense. UD totally took us out of our offense and limited us to dribble drives from Semaj.

Some early misses down low set the tone for X and they never really looked comfortable inside. UD also played with much greater intensity. X didn't come out like they really wanted it....and never seemed to turn the switch on.

I'm not piling on or making excuses, but it was a very oddly refereed game. Pretty balanced on the whole, but odd. LOTS of touch whistles off the ball. At one point, back to back calls went against the defense where the defender, while being backed down, tripped and fell away from the offensive player (one for X and one for UD). Those back to back calls were sort of indicative of how the game went for X. The call against UD resulted in a 1 and 1...and X missed the front end. The one against X, was on a made shot and resulted in an "and 1." Either way, the game had a very strange flow as result. It proved to be an advantage for UD as they shoot the free throw better and have a deeper bench. Tightly reffed games haven't worked out so great for this version of X.

All in all, though, poor effort from X and a good one from UD. UD clearly played the better game today.

[ThrowDownDBrown]

Ed Hightower is an absolute embarrassment to officiating. Not only is he a terrible ref but he's a complete jackass with his extravagant calls. How he is viewed as a top of the line ref is a complete mystery to me.

[ThrowDownDBrown]

Not that the refs affected the outcome, they were bad for both teams. UD brought their usual A game in their yearly super bowl and x looked like they didn't even want to be there. For a team who talked of how they still thought they had a shot at the tourney their effort today was absolutely pathetic.

[College Hoops]

Good win for Dayton. Christon was the most athletic guy on the floor. He just needs experience and to learn from his mistakes. Robinson and Pierre will be formidable players for UD in coming seasons. Surprised Dayton didn't try to get the ball to Derenbecker when Redford was on him. Big mismatch. Surprisingly, I thought Derenbecker did a good job defending Redford. To my knowledge, at no time in the broadcast did the ESPN2 announcers mention that Dayton only had two guards available. Thought X might have pressed especially when Derenbecker was the second guard. Loss may come back to haunt X come Selection Sunday. They've got a tough schedule remaining although 4 of 6 games are at home.

[ChrisSFlyer]

To every X fan who posts on here regularly: your team played hard. I hope like hell Christion moves on after next year. How can you deal with Redford going Lex Luthor? Great rivalry game. I hope both teams, along with VCU & Richmond get into the C7. Our rivalry was made for a league like that.

T9 Mr. Frontrunner PMT, where you at? You hide behind the guise of a broken computer when X has trouble during the offseason & only show up to drop barbs on UD & won't post after a game like this. I give the X fans who post here on a regular basis a pass...you now know what it's like to be a Dayton fan this year today. Kinda sucks. But to PMT (& HIM ONLY), a big FU XU & your Jeep license plate was right, Be At UD.

[xudash]

Originally Posted by ChrisSFlyer

To every X fan who posts on here regularly: your team played hard. I hope like hell Christion moves on after next year. How can you deal with Redford going Lex Luthor? Great rivalry game. I hope both teams, along with VCU & Richmond get into the C7. Our rivalry was made for a league like that.

T9 Mr. Frontrunner PMT, where you at? You hide behind the guise of a broken computer when X has trouble during the offseason & only show up to drop barbs on UD & won't post after a game like this. I give the X fans who post here on a regular basis a pass...you now know what it's like to be a Dayton fan this year today. Kinda sucks. But to PMT (& HIM ONLY), a big FU XU & your Jeep license plate was right, Be At UD.

Redford shaved his head for a friend (Joe Hughes) who was diagnosed with cancer.

[ChrisSFlyer]

Originally Posted by xudash

Redford shaved his head for a friend (Joe Hughes) who was diagnosed with cancer.

That's as good a reason as any. Prayers to his friend for recovery. I'd do the same thing for my friends any day. It's just hair.

Kudos to Redford for that move.

[stevex]

It was a must win for Dayton. They seem to save their best games every year for X at home. X is still in good shape if they can win out or at least win Wednesday and win all of their home games. Congrats to UD on their season saving win.

[ExplorerSteve]

Originally Posted by ThrowDownDBrown

Ed Hightower is an absolute embarrassment to officiating. Not only is he a terrible ref but he's a complete jackass with his extravagant calls. How he is viewed as a top of the line ref is a complete mystery to me.

You had a bonus in that game with Wally Rutecki also! Rutecki is a total jackass.

[SingletofTruth]

Obviously I am glad we won. It's always good to beat Xavier. But it is a little hard to get too excited given the year we are having. James (Semaj, just FYI, which almost makes it worse - toss up between that and TuTu) is a stud. God I am going to hate him for the next few years. Hopefully he decides to do a little spin the blow job or whatever it was that got the other guy shown the door.

I was also about to make fun of Redford's hair but it isa little hard to do given his reason.

What is frustrating is that in Xavier's down year they are still upper crust in the A-10 and we blow. But such is life as a Flyer fan. The baby Jesus doesn't like us for some reason.

Question for X fans. Has your team struggled from the free throw line all year? I felt they would have been right in the game had they hit their free throws. And it wasn't just the big guys. I felt like the guards were some of the worst offenders.

I'm tired of playing X in the tourney. If, and its a big if, we make it, I hope we don't see them again.

[bprichard]

Originally Posted by SingletofTruth

Obviously I am glad we won. It's always good to beat Xavier. But it is a little hard to get too excited given the year we are having. James (Semaj, just FYI, which almost makes it worse - toss up between that and TuTu) is a stud. God I am going to hate him for the next few years. Hopefully he decides to do a little spin the blow job or whatever it was that got the other guy shown the door.

I was also about to make fun of Redford's hair but it isa little hard to do given his reason.

What is frustrating is that in Xavier's down year they are still upper crust in the A-10 and we blow. But such is life as a Flyer fan. The baby Jesus doesn't like us for some reason.

Question for X fans. Has your team struggled from the free throw line all year? I felt they would have been right in the game had they hit their free throws. And it wasn't just the big guys. I felt like the guards were some of the worst offenders.

I'm tired of playing X in the tourney. If, and its a big if, we make it, I hope we don't see them again.

Completely agreed with your first three sentences.

I disagree with the last part, though. I'd rather play X one more time. At least we won't come out completely flat like we're tempted to do against other teams, and I always enjoy a good neutral court rubber match. In any case, I'd rather not even look ahead to it. Making it to Brooklyn is far from a guarantee. Our schedule isn't exactly murderer's row from here on out, but we haven't won a road game in conference thus far, which is going to be a necessity.

[FlyingElvis]

Originally Posted by FlyingElvis

This was a very nice performance by Archie and the Flyers. But I think it's a formula that we should have arrived at earlier in the year. More passing from Dillard, less Benson in post situations, more of our other 3 bigs on the court, more Pierre taking the ball to the hoop off the dribble, less +15 foot jumpers from Oliver, more effort, organization and accountability on defense. If they burn up the end of the season, I'll forgive Archie.

What an odd year to be a UD fan. Lots of underachieving so far. I do believe that if Archie coaches to the formula above that UD could still be formiddable in this league (tournament) this year.

[xudash]

Originally Posted by SingletofTruth

Obviously I am glad we won. It's always good to beat Xavier. But it is a little hard to get too excited given the year we are having. James (Semaj, just FYI, which almost makes it worse - toss up between that and TuTu) is a stud. God I am going to hate him for the next few years. Hopefully he decides to do a little spin the blow job or whatever it was that got the other guy shown the door.

I was also about to make fun of Redford's hair but it isa little hard to do given his reason.

What is frustrating is that in Xavier's down year they are still upper crust in the A-10 and we blow. But such is life as a Flyer fan. The baby Jesus doesn't like us for some reason.

Question for X fans. Has your team struggled from the free throw line all year? I felt they would have been right in the game had they hit their free throws. And it wasn't just the big guys. I felt like the guards were some of the worst offenders.

I'm tired of playing X in the tourney. If, and its a big if, we make it, I hope we don't see them again.

My recollection is that, by and large, it's been a crap shoot with FT shooting all year, but I do remember Christon being more steady in that department earlier in the season. I did read (on the Xavier board) that his elbow infection from early in the season continues to bother him. But that's one player; most Xavier squads from recent years, especially the ones that went deep in the Tournament, put up much better percentages than this version of Xavier hoops. It's the ride we're on this year: King's Island meets Cedar Point.

[bprichard]

Christon's free throw shooting has been a crap shoot all season. The elbow injury was a real thing that seemed to affect him severely from Vanderbilt through Wofford. Since then, it's been completely unpredictable with mostly solid showings (it's not like today's 7-10 was that venal) and a couple of stinkbombs (7-13 against Richmond and 2-6 against GW).

[hoch21]

Christian will be very good, but X has no one else on that team. What you have here is a team that expects to win and a coach that can coach. To be frank, X is god awful and still towards the top of the A10. If you look at their schedule they play the toughest teams last, I expect their record to be right at .500. UD played their toughest part first and got embarrassed so we will see. The UD crowd looked amazing but it's a shame that the Red Scare only shows up for a handful of games, they were the difference as well as Chris Johnson coming back, that was very cool. Good luck to UD and X for the rest of the year.