Xavier Survives Herd Second Half Stampede

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It was Xavier's turn to be the victim of a comeback but they held off a Thundering Herd stampede to defeat the Marshall 81-77.

Xavier trailed by 22 points against East Tennessee State on Saturday but watched its own 20-point halftime lead disappear like moonshine at a Huntington ho down.

"We were jittery at the beginning," Marshall coach Dan D'Antoni said.  "The beat us on the board pretty good but we had plenty of chances to win in the last five minutes. The 9 in front of their name made us a little nervous."

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Xavier played without starters J.P. Macura, who has blurred vision after taking a blow to the head on Saturday and Kaiser Gates, who is also hobbled with an injury.

Understudies, Karem Kanter and Tyrique Jones produced Xavier's second and third double doubles to give 11-1 Xavier its sixth straight win.

"I'm proud of our team. We're a little short on scholarship players," Xavier coach Chris Mack said.  "For us its a great win to say our best player (Trevon Bluiett) didn't play very well and be short handed.  We had freshmen out there playing a lot of minutes.  The front court played awesome."

Kanter, Jones and Sean O'mara was included in the trio of big men.

"We came out with a lot of energy," Mack said.

Xavier led 47-27 at halftime but Marshall whittled the lead to five with :21 seconds left.

The Musketeers made just seven field goals in the second half.  Bluiett, the team's leading scorer finished with 10 points, less than half of his pregame average.

Kanter scored 16, a career high and pulled in 13 rebounds.  Jones scored 14 with 11 rebounds to pick up their teammates.  It was the first time two Musketeer players turned in double doubles in the same game since February 16, 2016 against Providence.  It was the first of Jone's career.

Ajdin Penava scored a game-high 25 points with nine rebounds for Marshall (8-4).  Herd leading scorer Jon Elmore scored 16 and dished out nine assists.,  C.J. Burks scored 18 and Rondale Watson in his first game for Marshall chipped in with 10 points.  Watson is a transfer from Wake Forest.
Kanter and Jones got help from Quentin Goodin's 14 points and O'Mara's 14.

"I wish I was a smart enough coach to get Kanter, Jones and O'Mara in the game at the same time," Mack said.

Xavier has now won 39 con-conference games in a row at the Cintas Center.

Marshall will host Eastern Kentucky on Friday.

Xavier will take on Northern Iowa on Friday at 9:00 p.m.

"I'm not even going to look at the tape from this game," Mack said.  "I'm concentrating on Northern Iowa.  We talked about our makeup tour.  (Xavier has beaten three teams that handed them losses last year).  We beat Northern Iowa twice last year and they will have three players on the floor who will want to get back at us."