In spite of Evansville shooting 46% from the field, 52% from 3 and Xavier only shooting 55% from the Free Throw line, The Musketeers held on to win another early season test...
"They've got some great players over there, they made some tough shots. They were more disciplined than us tonight." said Junior Forward Tyrique Jones. Xavier gave up 85 points to Evansville tonight after just giving up 69 points in their season opener to IUPUI, lack of defense is something Jones was shocked to see. "it's definitely a surprise. I think we're going to learn from these games, we will go back and watch film like we do after every game to see the mistakes we made and correct them. But it is a surprise."
Jones had a dominant performance in Saturday afternoon's game with a 19 point effort tying his career high and also 20 rebounds, almost as much as Evansville's whole team (22).
Sophmore guard Paul Scruggs also had a performance to write home about with 24 points on 8/15 shooting along with three rebounds and three assists. "I was just trying to give my team energy and be the captain I know I can be out there so I did that today." Scruggs said in regards to his performance, and the energy was definitely there.
Xavier saw Quentin Goodin make his season debut and Goodin played really well with fourteen points in 15 minutes before getting ejected from the game for throwing the Basketball off of an Evansville player, something Xavier head coach Travis Steele said will not effect his status for Tuesday evenings game vs. Wisconsion.
"I was disappointed on the defensive end. We've gotta be a heck of a lot better especially with the schedule we have coming up. On both ends, man and zone we gotta be a lot better. To give them 33 threes where they shoot 17 for 33 is way too many." A frustrated Coach Steele mentioned. But he did take the blame for his teams defensive efforts. "That goes on me, not our players. I always say undisciplined players are coached by undisciplined coaches."
Xavier is now 2-0 and will face Wisconsin this Tuesday evening at 6:30 PM est from the Cintas Center. Xavier was victorious when these two teams played last season at the Badgers home court. Wisconsin will come into the game with a 1-0 record after an 85-63 victory over Coppin St.
