Xavier Rebounds With A Win In Skip Prosser Classic

The Xavier Musketeers used a 11-0 run to take a 60-55  lead in the second half to defeat the Western Carolina Catamounts in the Skip Prosser Classic.

Xavier (10-2)  road the momentum to a 74-61 win over Western Carolina (7-3, 1-0 Southern Conference).

WCU coach, Mark Prosser is the son of the former Xavier coach who died of a heart attack while coaching Wake Forest University.  Wake Forest defeated Xavier 80-78 on Saturday December 14.

Prosser was a child when his father coached at Xavier.  It was a unique experience for him to come back to coach this game.

"This one was different for me," Prosser said.  "Seeing the logo on the floor was really special.  It was fun to be a part of this.  I want to thank Wake Forest and Xavier for continuing this series to remember my father.  It is special."

Xavier led 32-29 at half but the Catamounts broke out with a seven-point lead.  Xavier's run put an end to WCU's aspirations.

Quentin Goodin scored 25 points and made all four of his 3-point jumpers to lead the Musketeers.  Josh Carter scored 14 points and had nine rebounds. Zach Freemantle scored 13 points off the bench.

"It was the next play mentality.  I knew I'd have to pick up my game with Naji not being here," said Goodin, who notched career high.  Marshall was ill and could not play.  He remained in his room and wasn't on the bench.

"Quentin played like a senior with great poise, great rhythm.  He was confident," Xavier coach Travis Steele said.

Tyrique Jones had 11 rebounds in six minutes of play but was cold from the floor.

"Zach Freemantle picked us up.  Tyrique didn't have it<" Steele said.  "Tyrique is a really good player.  He could be the dominant player on the floor every single night."

Carter used a couple dunks to amass his point total.

"I felt a little bouncy today," Carter said.

Cincinnati native and former Walnut Hills High School star, Kameron Gibson led the Catamounts with 16 points.  Mason Faulkner, a transfer from Northern Kentucky University added 14 points for WCU.

"It was special and fun to come back and play in front of my family and friends and have a good game," Gibson said.  "I don't get to see them too much during the season."

Northen Kentucky Takes Down Eastern Kentucky An In State Rivalry Where Basketball Matters

The Northern Kentucky Norse won the budding intrastate rivalry with a 76-57 win over the Eastern Kentucky Colonels by taking charge in the second half.

Dantez Walton and Trevon Faulkner scored 18 points to lead the Norse.  Walton scored 10 in the second half when the Norse pulled away.

"I'm going to keep on saying it changes, if there's a guy playing better than Dantez Walton, I'd like to see him," NKU coach Dsrrin Horn said.

Walton was one of five NKU players that logged over 35 minutes against a team that forces up tempo basketball by pressing for 40 minutes.  Tyler Sharpe played all 40 minutes and Bryson Langdon along with Falkner ran up and down the court the entire game.

"We turned the ball over 21 times but give credit to Eastern.  They are good at what they do," Horn said.  "I'm proud of our guys and the conditioning that they put in to hold up against a team that presses like they do."

The Norse survived 21 turnovers against a team whose strategy is to force a lot of turnovers and spark their own offense with a transition game.  Eastern came into the game with second in the nation with 21.8 turnovers forced per game.  They are also fourth in steals per game with 11.  Indeed they stole the ball from NKU 11 times.

"We talked about it at the eight minute time out," said 40-minute man Tyler Sharpe.  "I don't think the were getting up the floor as fast in the second half. They got tired toward the end and we took advantage of that."

Notrhtern's late run indicates that.  The score was 56-48 at the eight minute timeout.  Eastern cut it to four with a layup by Houston King at the 6:52 mark but NKU put the game away with its run that ballooned the lead to 19 points, 74-55 with 1:23 left in the game.

A 3-point shot by Adham Eleeda at the 3:24 mark gave the Colonels a 14-point lead, extending a 14-0 run over a three- minute stretch to turn the game into a rout.

The game was tied after 20 minutes at 35-35.  Eastern led by as many as 12 points, using the 3-point shot.  The Colonels scored 21 of its 35 points from behind the arc on 7-for-14 accuracy..  It was contrary to their season stats coming into the game. The Colonels (3-6) were shooting 31% from the outside.

Northern (7-3) turned the ball over 10 times against the Colonels pressing defense in the half.  The Norse stayed in the game with 10 points from the foul line as the Colonels were whistled for 11 fouls.

NKU has been a success by any objective measure in its eighth year of NCAA Division I play and just its fourth season as a member with active status, making two trips to play in the big tournament in March.

Eastern won last year's contest in Richmond on a last second shot and still leads the series 6-4 all-time but the Norse is becoming the type of dangerous team that the big schools shy away from.

To compare Eastern played its long time bitter rival Western Kentucky at home.  They also traveled to Lexington, losing to the big boys, the Kentucky Wildcats 91-49.  They play the other major program in the state the Louisville Cardinals on Saturday the 14th at noon.

Northern in the Horizon Conference has scheduling challenges but indicated that they would like to extend this series beyond next year's commitment to play Eastern.

Sharpe from Mt. Washington Kentucky put it this way.  "It would be a rivalry any time you play in-state schools.  With us three or four mid major teams (EKU, WKU, Murray, Belmont and Morehead State) There should be a little chip on our shoulders.  There is a difference in the energy when an instate teams comes in to play."

Horn, a native of Lexington, played at Western Kentucky when there was a grudge-match rivalry between Eastern and Western.

Could the newly knighted Division I Norse be the new rivalry since Western has moved on from the old Ohio Valley Conference days.  Eastern coach, A.W. Hamilton, is a native of Georgetown, Kentucky and played his college basketball at Marshall another of Eastern's traditional rivals.

"I've known A Dub a long time.  I had respect for him when he was a player coming out of high school," Horn said.  "I've watched his coaching career and I think he's got the right stuff. His team plays the right way,.  He has a definite vision of how he wants his team to play.  They are recruiting to it and playing that way."

"I think this is a good game," Horn continued.  "There is one more year on the contract.  It is definitely something that we would look at again.  We've got some scheduling challenges that I don't want to get into tonight with adding league games.  I don't know how that is going to work. But yes, I like this game.  Basketball matters in this state."Eastern

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Big Second Half By Naji Marshall And Xavier Wins Crosstown Rivalry

Naji Marshall tool control of the game for the Xavier Musketeers, who took down its crosstown rivals, the Cincinnati Bearcats in a 73-67 win at the Cintas Center.

Marshall led all scorers with a career-high tying 31 points to lift the Musketeers in a second half ambush.

"We were locked in for 40 minutes.  They hit some tough shots but we played hard to the end," Marshall said.

Cincinnati was within three points at halftime, 32-29..  Tyrique Jones only played four minutes after he was whistled for two early fouls.  Zach Freemantle took his place and scored seven points and pulled in four rebounds.

"I was going to put Tyrique back in but Zach Freemantle was so dang good," Xavier coach Travis Steele said.

It allowed Jones to be fresh in the second half without the added pressure of foul trouble.  Jones scored four points and Marshall seven in the first six minutes of the second half.  Xavier built a 10-point lead.

'We dame out in the second half and they punched us in the mouth.  We never recovered," Jaevin Cumberland said.  Jaevin Cumberland had 14 points and his brother Jarron had 11.  Jarron, a senior, is the Bearcats leading scorer on the season, averaging 14.3 points per game.  He is nursing a minor injury and was not at his best.

"He looked pretty good to me," Steele said, "We had Naji on him and he played pretty good defense.  People will talk about his 31 points but he played dorn good defense.'

"It isn't about me," Marshall said.  He got great respect from the Cincinnati coach.

"Naji is a big time player," UC coach John Brannen said.  "He took over the game in the second half, both halves really. He had an unbelievable game."

Brannen thought his team was good in the first half but was subpar in the second half.

"It was a lack of intensity in the second half and focus on guarding the basketball," Brannen said. "We've had that issue in the second half of the games for most of the early season. That being said we cut it to a two possession game with two minutes to go.  We fought back but at the end of the day we have to defend at a higher level."

Xavier maintained a double digit lead, stretching it to as high as 16 points until the 2:27 mark of the second half. 

Mika Adams-Woods hit a 3-point basket on a fast break feed from Jaevin Cumberland to cut their deficit to eight.  Trevon Scott stole a Marshall pass to give the Bearcats a chance to close the gap to five but Jaevin Cumberland missed a 3-point shot at the other end.  Jones snatched his sixth rebound to preserve Xavier's lead.  Chris McNeal scored a basket with nine seconds left to provide the final tally.

Jones narrowly missed his sixth double-double of the season with 10 points and nine rebounds despite playing just 22 minutes.  Marshall had eight rebounds to go with his 31 points.  Freemantle finished with nine points and four rebounds.  Quentin Goodin had eight assists and played 'darn good defense," according to Steele.

Cincinnati got the 25 points from the Wilmington, Ohio Cumberland brothers.  Ketih Williams led the Bearcats with 15 points.  Adams-Woods scored 10.  Freshman Chris Vogt, who was recruited by Brannen at his old gig for Northern Kentucky but followed the coach to UC, scored 10 points and led Cincinnati with eight rebounds.

The Queen City Rivalry Epic Writes Its 87th Chapter

To Cincinnati basketball fans, this is the most important game of the season.  There are greater goals at stake for sure, a conference championship, a good seed in the NCAA tournament but for thousands of people in the area this is it.  Many educated people attend undergraduate school at the University of Cincinnati and earn advanced degrees from Xavier University or vice versa. 

Others have strong preferences that their next door neighbor may not share to them this game is for bragging rights and is mostly friendly.

I say mostly because there have been some ugly incidents on and off the court.

There have been fights between coaches after games.  Cincinnati coach Bob Huggins and Xavier coach Peter Gillen had a shouting match during what should have been post game handshakes.  There was a fight on the court in the 80's between Cincinati natives, Keith Stark of  UC and Byron Larkin of Xavier.  There was an ugly fight at Xavier several years ago.  The last time the game was at Xavier's Cintas Center, Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin had harsh words for Xavier's J.P. Macura.  Macura was defended vigorously by Xavier coach, Chris Mack.  Ironically, the pair who grew up two miles apart in Cincinnati's northern suburbs were high school rivals.  Cronin played at LaSalle and Mack competed for St. Xavier High School.

Cincinnati holds a 51-35 advantage but over the last 25 years the rivalry has been more competitive.

Since Xavier moved to the Cintas Center and Cincinnati played at the Shoemaker Center the teams are 16-16 on their home court.  Cincinnati won on December 8 last year, 62-47 at UC, Cronin's last game of the series before moving on to coach at UCLA.  New UC coach John Brannen will be in his first Crosstown meeting.  Xavier coach Travis Steele will be in his second game of the rivalry as a head coach.

Xavier won four of the last six games and eight of the last 12.

This game tips off at 5:00 pm.

Xavier Takes Down Green Bay With Crosstown Shootout Ahead

Naji Marshall took control of the game in the second half and led the Xavier Musketeers to a 84-71 win over the University of  Wisconsin Green Bay Phoenix.

The Musketeers are tuning up for their big rivalry game against the University of Cincinnati Bearcats on Saturday at 5:00 pm.

The Musketeers will take a two-game winning streak and a record of 8-1.  The Phoenix will play at Eastern Illinois on Saturday.

Perhaps the Musketeers were looking ahead.  Travis Steele was unhappy with the effort even in the win.

"Our heads weren't in the game on either side of the ball," Steele said.  "That's on me.  I have to figure these guys out.  The tape doesn't lie.  There is no sensitivity in our film sessions.  We need to do a better job or we are going to learn the hard way.  I don't want to learn the hard way."

Green Bay slowed the Musketeers down and made them look out of sync in the first half.  Xavier used its depth and strength to wear down the Phoenix and win what turned into a physical game.

"For the most part we did what we wanted to do, keep it packed in and make them hit jumpers. I thought the guys in the first half did a great job of executing it," Phoenix coach Linc Darner.." In the second half, they decided to slash and drive get it to the rim and then go get the rebound.  They are a lot bigger and stronger than we are.  I thought our guys did a great job.  They only had four offensive rebounds in the first half. They had 14 in the second half."


Marshall notched 12 points in the first half on by hitting four of six shots, including a 3-pointer and making all three of his free throws. He matched the point total in the second half, making all four shots from the field.  His 24 points was the game high.

Tyrique Jones scored 14 points and pulled in 14 rebounds, seven of which were on the offensive glass. It was Jones' fifth double-double of the season and 16th of his career.  Paul Scruggs scored 4 1points and Quentin Goodin added 11 points.

Although turnovers were down for Xavier, they had trouble scoring early in the first half.  They built an eight-point lead near the middle of the first half to build an 38-30 lead but Green Bay closed out the first half with a 5-0 run.  Will Chevalier missed a 3-pointer at the first half buzzer that would have tied the game.  Xavier took a 38-35 lead into halftime.

Green Bay freshman, Amari Davis from Trotwood Madison near Dayton, led his team with 19 points.  He scored 28 in the Phoenix last game against Montana State.