The first two games haven’t been easy for Richard Pitino at Xavier, but he’s quickly learning a lot about his team.
That team gets a slightly bigger test when the Musketeers host Santa Clara Monday night in Cincinnati.
Malik Messina-Moore led a balanced scoring attack with 17 points as sharp-shooting Xavier (2-0) fended off an upset bid from visiting Le Moyne, 74-69, Thursday.
Santa Clara (2-0) beat McNeese State on Friday for its second straight home win to begin the season.
Roddie Anderson III scored 15, and Filip Borovicanin hauled in 12 rebounds for Xavier. Both players started in the season-opening win against Marist, but Pitino didn’t like the energy to start that game, so he had both come off the bench against Le Moyne.
It was the second win for Jovan Milicevic and Borovicanin at their new school after both followed Pitino to Xavier from New Mexico this offseason.
“It’s the second game they’ve all won together collectively as a team,” Pitino said. “Jovan and Filip won 27 games or whatever last year. But this is such a work in progress. Every game, even the exhibition games, have been close.”
The Santa Clara team Xavier faces Monday night features a former NBA G League player who has been declared eligible for college play.
Thierry Darlan, who is from the Central African Republic, spent the past two seasons in the NBA G League, playing for the G League Ignite, Delaware Blue Coats and Rip City Remix. Darlan is the first person to play college basketball after a stint in the G League.
In his first game, an 83-53 win over Cal Poly Humboldt, Darlan grabbed 13 rebounds to go with his 13 points. He was held to four points and three rebounds in 17 minutes in Santa Clara’s second game.
Sash Gavalyugov had 19 points in the win over McNeese State while Allen Graves had 13 rebounds, including seven on the offensive end.
“Allen is an outstanding young player,” Santa Clara coach Herb Sendek said. “By college basketball standards, we’re playing a lot of young guys, a lot of first-year guys, and so it’s exciting to watch them have this opportunity and it’ll be a lot of fun to watch them grow and develop through the course of the year.”
–Field Level Media
