Observations on X from the MD couch .....

[Taj79]

... well, if you're going to end a streak, do it now as opposed to later. There will be those who lament the loss and the streak ending and there will be others who believe it's better now then in coming games. The only thing that matters now is the next 10-game winning streak to close this year out. That's all we need. We got a nine, and an 11. Why not a ten (or whatever it takes)?

First off, that was my first game with Pat Parrish and Joe Wiley with Fox Sports Midwest. Do you guys get them all the time? As nicely as I can put this --- they suck! I know big Joe is a Billiken Hall of Fame member but just being one does not mean it translates well to color commentary on television. I couldn't do it (there'd be to many fuoks) but that was bad. And Parrish started running his mouth all over the attributes of X when it was apparent it was over. Newsflash: Brad Redford is NOT a good basketball player. He might be a good long-range and free-throw shooter, but that is NOT a good basketbal player. Christon impressed me -- he seems the real deal. Too bad he's the only basketball player on that team.

For the game, we just seemed off. Xavier did what I expected and said they would ---- Semaj Christon and crash the boards. And we turned another 6'8" power forward into a star. Taylor is okay at best but 19 and 19? And we let Brad Redford make three threes and he even blocked Jordair's shot on a drive. The rest of the team was exactly who we thought they were --- but they did just enough to make some plays when the big two did not.

Cody had about the most horrid outing I've ever seen in all my 38 years with the Billikens. I mean .. nothing went down for this kid. I guess neither Parrish nor Wiley knew that was his parents in the white t-shirts first row behind the Billiken bench that the camera kept focusing on. Dad Mike seemed squirmish every time the camera lit him up and you could see he was suffering for his son. Oh well. File it. Bank it. Move on. Hopefully the home ocnfines on Senior Day spark him back to his usual self. It is not surprising X fans or any opposing fans would take it out on him. The blue hair makes for an easy target. Cody did seem to also have a few more defensive lapses than usual.

I thought we seemed to go away from our standard offense. The one that shoots from outside first and then opens up the inside for Dwayne later. Evans was getting hammered but he warriored on. Again, what passes for fouls in this league I don't understand. Christon comes down the court, out of control, legs flailing and Mitchell is nowhere near him and gets called for a tripping foul. Loe didn't take a three and we seemed to try to establish him on the inside. Really? Rob Loe? Inside? Mitchell and McCall were making some shots -- if Cody is that cold and Rob is that useless, why not feed the guys making shots? And if there was any game to fire the pass back outside once entry occurred to Dwayne, it was last night. Taylor, Philmore and Robinson were all packed in the paint it seemed. I thought Mack outcoached Crews in a rarity last night.

I also don't get JJ being the "go to" guy in the second half at two critical times. Now, JJ did get the tip with 11 seconds to go and was a usual key player, but there were two instances, once down two and another down 3, where JJ took the jumper and the three early on in the shot clock, missing both. He made four layups last night, missing on all other shots. Since Richmond, he is 19-of-22 from the line. And no one could seem to do anything to slow Christon's first step to the left. JJ included.

X fans are arrogant -- in person and on the tube. I hated that "the home of your Billiken sports coverage" saw fit to continually run shots of their midget cheerleaders looking all tough and their wonderful student section. I guess they needed something to talk about but it was our TV coverage, focus on the Billiken bench, or Crews, or May or someone other than X crap.

May did do another interview and the crew asked him straight up the Big East question. He dodged it with the usual platitiudes. Nothing new there.

Oh well. A loss. The most galling thing is who it was to in my book. All throguh my MCC days, we could never beat X. I like doing it and having them in a down year for a conference title would have been sweet justice. Oh well. Bring on Saturday. Senior Day. Conference title. At home. Coming off a loss. Are we lacking any motivation?

[MB73]

I watched the whole game; agree with your observations, and that the refs were brutal, a outrageous display of incompetence, even for the A-10 dullards.

But we missed our open shots. Terrible %'s.

Asking posters, we got in the night before at 1am or so... did we, then, miss a shoot-around that afternoon or anything like that? That might somewhat explain the atrocious shooting. The brain adjusts to the background, etc, on the road, it is sometimes difficult.

[kappy96]

JJ was very sloppy with the ball last night and made some bad decisions. We definitely were frustrated with the officials and our poor shooting and that seemed to manifest itself into us breaking away from our patient offensive sets later in the game. Get in the film room, study what happened and fix it. Future opponents will study this game and look to swarm DE down low so we need to be able to counter that. Better outside shooting will help but we can come down and jack up the first shot we see.

[cheeseman]

I wondered why they kept showing that couple - now it all makes sense that they would be in for senior night. To bad Cody had such a horrible shooting night - if he hits only one shot in regulation we win. No we do not normally get those two announcing but honestly we don't get a FSM broadcast very often. When we held X to only 20 points in the first half and we only scored 24 I knew we were in for trouble. I would have say - and I am not being catty here - the X cheerleaders were not easy on the eye in any way. I also thought the refs were very inconsistent with their calls - ticky tack fouls out but let players hammer away inside. Several walks that were never called by X but it was the first half performance that did us in and of course the overall poor shooting.

[Taj79]

Another "upon further review" moment ... how can a ref allow a timeout from the bench when the ball i sin the air? Is this a rule only in force in the A10 conference?

Earlier last night, I was watching Nova-Georgetown and Richmond-VCU. In both games, one a Nova kid the other a Richmond kid, had the ball and were dribbling aroudn the top of th ekey and put their foot down on top of the defender's already planted foot. Of course, their ankles twisted and they fell. In both cases, the refs called fouls on the defensive player. That's a tough foul to pick up. And shows incompetence is not exclusive to the A10. Referees last night: Earl Waltonb, Brian O'Connell and Brent Hampton. Don't care to see them again either.

And yet, muggings go unnoticed and unpunished.

[Taj79]

I met the Ellis' in AC and Columbus last year. Wonderful people. Mike is a lot of fun to talk to and never met a person he didn't treat well.

[Box and Won]

We need a picture of this couch.

[Deutschkind]

X fans are arrogant -- in person and on the tube. I hated that "the home of your Billiken sports coverage" saw fit to continually run shots of their midget cheerleaders looking all tough and their wonderful student section. I guess they needed something to talk about but it was our TV coverage, focus on the Billiken bench, or Crews, or May or someone other than X crap.

Pretty sure they were using the Fox Sports Ohio feed with our announcers

[jimbofive]

We need a picture of this couch.

hahahaha, yep.

cody ellis (and all the other bills, for that matter) cannot possibly have a another game worse than the one he just had. good to get these atrocities out of the way when it doesn't matter as much. and who knows what effect the travel had on the team? i would say that only kwamain and mccall had really solid "in sync" games, and even that's debatable. evans ended up w/ a good line purely as a result of his fire and hustle. if the ball was within 5 feet of him, he was getting it, unless travis taylor was, of course. career night for that guy. 19 points, 19 boards, 6 blocks. anyway, cody's still a hell of a player and a good kid and it'll light a fire. not worried about him. sh!t happens.

that was maybe the most physical game i've ever seen, and it was terrible to watch, terrible to officiate, and i'm sure terrible to play in. nobody got hurt, thankfully. as much as people are touting us as a physical team, we are not a thug team, and if allowed to go to that level, it negates a lot of the skill of our players. i actually thought that xavier played good fundamental defense on us. best i've seen this year, i think. but man, they hacked a lot, too. our team is the most skilled in the conference. the most disciplined as well. however, in a hostile anything goes environment like that, discipline can go out the window, and it did. a lot of ME ball in the first half, as evidence by our ONE ASSIST. i'm sure that the travel problems, combined with having half a dozen different guys who secretly believe that they're the best player on this team led to that. 9 nights out of 10, we put it aside and work as an awesome unit. that other night, we can be beaten. on the road. with bus lag. and pretty bad officiating. in OT.

let's see if crews asserts a bit more control after this. i don't think we need a balls out water cooler tossing, just a solid reminder that what we've been doing works and that as long as we pick each other up on defense, and make the extra pass on offense, nobody's beating us.

[JMM28]

I am not terribly concerned because, like others have said, everything went wrong last night. Yet we still took a top 100 team to OT and had a chance to win at the end.

Even taking Cody's 0-15 out, we still shot 38%. Not good enough to win.

Rob, Cory, and Grandy were all virtually non factors in the game. Those 3 combined for 2 points, 9 rebounds, 7 fouls, 1 assist. Not very good.

Dwayne started the game something like 1-7 or 1-8 and still put up 16-9.

This was a loss on the road, at a tough place to play, with unfavorable travel arrangements, and to a decent team. Nothing to worry about as long as they learn from this.

[Pistol]

Does anyone have a better picture than this of the Redford "block" on Jordair? Looked like a foul from my angle and I had good seats. This is from Twitter:

https://twitter.com/hughes_33/status/309521156602482688/photo/1

I got asked about this play this morning by a Xavier fan who shall remain unnamed, and I could barely remember the play. "DID YOU SEE REDFORD BLOCK JETT? AMAZING!" And I was confused. It barely registered in the course of everything else that happened.

Anyway, was this clean? The picture could I linked could be argued.

[billiken_roy]

xu cheerleaders were indeed ugly. the one in particular that was mugging for the camera often squeezing out of her lips, "go x go x" was particularly annoying. by the end of the game i was hoping she would end up as the night shift assistant manager at the newport ky cold stone ice cream. wait that probably is where she works now.

[moytoy12]

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="Pistol" data-cid="350304" data-time="1362670551"><p>

Does anyone have a better picture than this of the Redford "block" on Jordair? Looked like a foul from my angle and I had good seats. This is from Twitter:<br />

<br />

<a href='https://twitter.com/hughes_33/status/309521156602482688/photo/1'>https://twitter.com/hughes_33/status/309521156602482688/photo/1</a><br />

<br />

I got asked about this play this morning by a Xavier fan who shall remain unnamed, and I could barely remember the play. "DID YOU SEE REDFORD BLOCK JETT? AMAZING!" And I was confused. It barely registered in the course of everything else that happened.<br />

<br />

Anyway, was this clean? The picture could I linked could be argued.</p></blockquote>

Didn't look at the link, but on the replay it looked like Redford hit JJ's arm and then blocked the shot.

[Box and Won]

i was hoping she would end up as the night shift assistant manager at the newport ky cold stone ice cream. wait that probably is where she works now.

I'm pretty sure she works at UDF.

[Pistol]

I'm pretty sure she works at UDF.

Yeah, Roy, Box is correct. There are 2 UDF stores within walking distance of campus. The Newport Cold Stone Creamery would require a bus transfer. Don't want to have to cross state lines to scoop ice cream.

[jimbofive]

I'm pretty sure she works at UDF.

hahaha, i just assumed that was going to be University of Duck Face.

[jimbofive]

Does anyone have a better picture than this of the Redford "block" on Jordair? Looked like a foul from my angle and I had good seats. This is from Twitter:

https://twitter.com/hughes_33/status/309521156602482688/photo/1

I got asked about this play this morning by a Xavier fan who shall remain unnamed, and I could barely remember the play. "DID YOU SEE REDFORD BLOCK JETT? AMAZING!" And I was confused. It barely registered in the course of everything else that happened.

Anyway, was this clean? The picture could I linked could be argued.

i thought it was clean. pretty much the most athletic play you'll ever see redford make. just a quick, off-balance jump on a shot that jett barely left the ground on. hat's off to redford, he played hard and had a great senior night. so did travis taylor. that's what seniors on good teams should do. that being said, look for ours to go the fuok off against la salle.

[Pistol]

i thought it was clean. pretty much the most athletic play you'll ever see redford make. just a quick, off-balance jump on a shot that jett barely left the ground on. hat's off to redford, he played hard and had a great senior night. so did travis taylor. that's what seniors on good teams should do. that being said, look for ours to go the fuok off against la salle.

Damn. I wanted more ammo to go back at her with. I would like to see Xavier again in Brooklyn. I think we win by 15. And Jett flosses his teeth with Redford.

[slufanskip]

The only thing I took from this game was we need to change Jake's name to Ekaj pronounced ee-kah-jay

[wgstl]

whats that codys parents they kept showing on the camera?

[Pistol]

The only thing I took from this game was we need to change Jake's name to Ekaj pronounced ee-kah-jay

[Taj79]

Don't forget .. Mike Ellis was a stud of an Aussie basketball player too. He was double-suffering I'm sure.

As for Redford's block .... there were about two or three on X that I thought were missed. Taylor I believe blocked Evans and did get his hand on the ball .. after coming up through both of Dwayne's arms to finally get there. Again, the idea has to be hit everything moving and see what the refs call and adjust from there. If they call nothing and you are the perpetrator, good for you.

[RUBillsFan]

As for Redford's block .... there were about two or three on X that I thought were missed. Taylor I believe blocked Evans and did get his hand on the ball .. after coming up through both of Dwayne's arms to finally get there. Again, the idea has to be hit everything moving and see what the refs call and adjust from there. If they call nothing and you are the perpetrator, good for you.

I thought Redford's block was probably clean. He could have probably been called for a blocking foul while Jett was driving to the hoop (as McCall & Mitchell were a few times on Semaj's drives), but the zebras don't make that call late in the game against the home team.

Taj is absolutely correct re the blocks of Dwayne. Twice an X bruiser (might have been Taylor both times, not sure) "blocked" Evans shot after going through his arm to get the ball. X bigs were leaning into and over Dwayne all night with no calls. I have to give them credit though, they did a good job of bumping our guys with their bodies while keeping their hands high. Playing D like that makes it a lot tougher for the ref to call fouls.

[Schasz]

Kind of wish with our last possession in regulation we go for broke with a 3. Win or lose with the last shot. We were in bad foul trouble and because of that and the way the zebras called the game I did not like our chances in OT.

[slu72]

I want know who the Obama look alike in the suit was. They kept showing him and late in the game they made the comment, X has a diverse student body. A better line would have been, that's an exchange student from in their swap program with Al Quaida. The man was scary looking and looked lost as in what game is this they are playing?