Xavier is out to rebound from a disappointing road loss in Big East play when they host No. 19 UConn on Saturday night in Cincinnati.
Xavier (12-8, 4-5 Big East) held a 16-point lead with 17:03 remaining Wednesday night in New York’s Madison Square Garden and had a chance to put away No. 20 St. John’s. But the Red Storm roared back as the Musketeers fell 79-71 in overtime.
Xavier was outscored 29-10 over a nearly 14-minute stretch as the Musketeers saw a double-digit lead evaporate into a 63-60 deficit with 3:30 remaining. Xavier lost the battle of points in the paint 48-24 and shot 35.7 percent in the second half.
“It’s called game pressure. It’s time, score, crowd. There’s a lot at stake. Possessions are sacred,” Xavier coach Sean Miller said. “As a coach, you want a team that’s about the same in that moment as you are early in the first half. You get to a point where there’s three minutes left.”
Led by Ryan Conwell’s 21 points and Dailyn Swain’s 16, Xavier rallied over the final 3:11 to force overtime but was outscored 8-0 in the opening three minutes of the extra period.
“We have to be more of the same team as we were in the previous 37 minutes,” Miller said. “You smell that popcorn, the crowd is getting loud, guys can’t catch, all of a sudden you can’t remember and it’s a bad feeling. We have some of that.”
Swain had to be helped off the court with three minutes left in regulation with what appeared to be a right leg injury.
“We’ll take care of his safety,” Miller said. “I don’t know how much time he’ll miss.”
Saturday night will be a rematch of another difficult Big East road loss in overtime for Xavier as UConn rallied from five points down late in the second half on Dec. 18 in Hartford, Conn. The Huskies outscored the Musketeers 16-11 in the extra five minutes to register a 94-89 win.
UConn (14-5, 6-2) survived a scare from Butler in its last game, an 80-78 home win in overtime Tuesday. The teams combined for just two points over the final two minutes of regulation as Huskies coach Dan Hurley pleaded for foul calls from the officials.
The demonstrative coach, who watched his team squander a 10-point lead with 12 minutes remaining, has earned a reputation for criticizing officials for what he believes is a major discrepancy in fouls against his two-time defending national championship team.
UConn was called for 21 fouls in Tuesday’s game while Butler was whistled only 13 times.
“I’ve created this for myself, I’m not the victim. I just wish they just would not have the camera on me 90 percent of the time,” Hurley said.
“… If it’s because they don’t like me, that’s a problem, because that’s an integrity of the game issue. You can’t come into a game saying, ‘I’m not going to call fouls because I don’t like this coach’s demeanor.'”
–Field Level Media
