Xavier Vanquishes Old Foe To Bounce Back From A Loss

The Detroit Mercy Titans and the Xavier Musketeers renewed an old rivalry at the Cintas Center.  Xavier prevailed in the first meeting since 2008 with a 69-55 score.

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Xavier played without starters Tyrique Jones and Naji Marshall who had injuries.   Quentin Goodin led Xavier with 22 points and  Ryan Welage scored six points on 3-pointers in two possessions to mitigate the loss.

Zach Hankins scored 12 points and pulled in 10 rebounds in place of Jones and Welage contributed 16 as Marshall's replacement.

Antoine Davis tallied 19 for Detroit.  Derrien King scored 10 for the Titans and led them with eight rebounds.


"Antoine Davis is an incredible player," Xavier coach Travis Steele said.. "There's a reason he's the second-leading scorer in the country. I thought Quentin did a tremendous job. We made him earn his points. I thought our defense in the half-court was tremendous."

The decision on Marshall came late in the day.

"Naji's back has been bothering him the last week or so. We wanted to shut him down and get him healthy," Steele said.

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The two squads paired up in the Midwestern Collegiate Conference from the 1980-81 season through the 1994-95 season when Xavier left to join the Atlantic 10.  Detroit stayed put to compete in the conference that has since changed its name to the Horizon League that has Northern Kentucky University as one of its members.


Xavier (8-5) rebounded from a 71-56 loss to Missouri on Tuesday.  Detroit Mercy (3-9) lost its fifth straight game.  Both teams go into conference play next.  Xavier opens Big East play at Depaul on next Saturday.  Detroit goes to Youngstown State next Friday.

"After the game, at Missouri, everybody's head was down," Goodin said.  "I took it upon myseylf,  Tyrique, Paul, to call a team meeting. We just let out what we were holding in. I feel after we did that, everything else just played out for itself. We started trusting each other more. We played more connected, there was more connectivity. And we had fun. I felt the last few games, we hadn't been having fun"

Xavier opened a nine point lead, 23-14 but an effective timeout by Detroit coach Mike Davis at the 7:29 mark, resulted in a 10-point run that gave the Titans a 24-23 lead with 4:36 left.  Davis and King led the comeback.

"I told them we have to find our shooters," Davis said, one of which is his son Antoine.  "Xavier did a good job of controlling the tempo.  Number 32 (Welage) made some tough shots."

Keonte Kennedy's 3-point shot gave Xavier the lead back.  Ryan Welage connected from behind the arc to help Xavier to a 32-26 lead at the half.