Musketeers Down the Dogs 70-56

The Xavier Musketeers won its fourth game in as many tries with a big win over the Georgia Bulldogs at the Cintas Center.

The Musketeers took advantage of poor shooting by the Bulldogs to build a nine-point halftime lead and never looked back.

Georgia lost its two leading scorers, who left early.  Xavier defeated that version of the Bulldogs in Athens, Georgia on February 8, earlier this year.

Xavier's defense choked the Bulldogs, holding them to one basket in its first 16 attempts.  The Musketeers started off with the first 10 points.

Individually, Travis Taylor turned in a double double with 12 points and 12 rebounds.  The 12 boards was a game high.  Kenny Frease scored 12. Tu Holloway matched Frease with 12. Mark Lyons scored 10 to give the Musketeers four double digit scorers.

Xavier built an 11 point lead at the mid point of the first half but went cold for two minutes to allow Georgia to  stay close.

Georgia exhausted its final time out early in the second half and Xavier kept the defensive pressure to build the lead to 30 with 7:32 left in the contest.

"We weren't shooting well but we kept up the defensive pressure," Musketeer coach Chris Mack said.

Georgia coach, Mark Fox, kept trying to stop Xavier's momentum with timeouts.

"Xavier is better than us right now," Fox said.  "We got off to a very slow start."

Georgia (4-2) was coming off a victory over Notre Dame on Tuesday, while Xavier (4-0) was rested with a week of inactivity.

Xavier subbed liberally, allowing freshman Dee Davis playing time earlier than he'd seen in the first three games.

"We played with a lot of energy," Holloway said.  "Coach told us before the game we were going to be subbing every two or three minutes."

Taylor, a transfer from Monmouth University in Union, NJ, felt the energy after grabbing some rebounds.

"It gets your motor running," Taylor said.  "It does me.  We're not a finished product yet.  We're still bonding."

Georgia drew an administrative technical foul at the 12:09 mark when freshman Kentavius Caldwell-Pope called a timeout as he fell to prevent a traveling call.  The Bulldogs had used all of its allotted timeouts prior to the call.

"We started very poorly," Fox explained.  "We were trying to hang on until halftime and didn't quite make it."