The season of constant tumult

Sometimes real life has the utter temerity to get in the way of college basketball. This weekend the Banners staff was all scattered about doing various things. When I jumped into the game in the first half, lo and behold, Xavier was up 19 on Marquette! This surely augured good things.

Well, you’ve seen this movie before. Xavier got up 21, let Marquette back within six, then made the shots they needed to get the game over the line. This season has featured a Xavier team that just cannot figure out what they want to be, so let’s write a look back of this game in full Musketeers fashion.

Positive

What an incredible first half from All Wright. The scorer from Valpo has struggled to acclimate to the Big East at times this season. No one in his conference took a higher percentage of his teams shots last season. This year, he’s been a cog in wheel. He had a forgettable 14 against UConn. That was not the first half on Sunday. Wright was simply unstoppable. He poured in 16 on 3-3/3-5/1-1 shooting and played with a fearlessness that hasn’t always been missing from his game, but maybe hasn’t been the defining feature of it. He was brilliant in the first half and Marquette had no answer.

Jovan Milicevic has adjusted better to the Big East, but it hasn’t all been puppies and rainbows. If All Wright’s 14 against UConn was forgettable, Milicevic’s two was even more so. He also came out swinging against the Golden Eagles. In the first half he splashed three threes, more than he had made in an entire game in more than a month. He was also significant on the glass, where Xavier was far superior to what they had been in that collapse the last time out against Marquette.

And that was the story of the entire team. The Musketeers averaged 1.5 points per possession, turned the ball over just twice, held Marquette to five second chance points, drained 11 threes, scored 11 more on the break and in general dominated the Golden Eagles. It was comprehensive. It was 51-35 and it was, to the neutral, a game that Xavier had complete control over.

This was the positive ideal of Richard Pitino’s Xavier program. Marquette was flailing and couldn’t land a glove anywhere. The defense wasn’t impenetrable, but they were forcing turnovers on 20.9% of Marquette’s possessions. Combine that with a high pace and quick passing, Malik Messina-Moore alone had eight assists, and you had a lead that surely couldn’t slip.

But this is 2025-26 Xavier. We all knew better.

Negative

This was not Tre Carroll’s game. Unfortunately, Tre did not know that. He went 3-10 from the floor and turned the ball over twice trying to force his own offense. He got two big buckets, but during Xavier’s decline he was also declining.

And decline Xavier did. It wasn’t the offense, 45 points in a half and 1.32 per possession is still excellent. It wasn’t the shooting, Xavier was, Carroll and MMM aside, still deadeyed and shot 41.7% behind the arc. But the defense, oh, the defense.

This, then, is the negative end of Richard Pitino’s Xavier. When the defense goes it isn’t the steady slide of a team wearing down. It is an eroded cliff falling into the sea. It is an avalanche. It is Lindsey Vonn on the downhill or the Swedish cross country girl somehow landing on her head. (I’ve been watching a lot of Olympics). That happened in this game, and it happened incredibly fast.

It wasn’t a run, per se, because Xavier also kept scoring, but they could not get a stop. I don’t mean that figuratively. In the first 11 minutes of the second half Marquette scored on 14 of their 18 possessions. The Golden Eagles went on to score in 25 of 36 in the second half. The fact that Xavier was scoring at an incredible rate only meant that they were able to keep up.

The defense dissolved from the inside out, but then also from the outside in. At first, it was Royce Parham, a decent player doing functionally whatever he wanted in the post. Anthony Robinson mustered eight ineffective minutes. Pape N’Diaye never appeared. The rest of the Xavier bigs had no answer. That meant the guards had to help, which meant that they were frequently in rotation or one v one on the outside. That meant that Nigel James Jr. had the run of things. He scored 20 in the second half and got fouled hard by Isaiah Walker on a late drive when could have cut it to two. Thankfully, it wasn’t called.

So what was this game?

There are a lot of positives to take from this one. Not least of them is that Xavier took an almighty punch, staggered, then had enough in them to hit back to win. Filip Borovicanin was 1-1 from three in the second half, but it was a huge one. He was in that position because Jovan Milicevic, never lacking confidence, had hit two big shots of his own. He was in that position because two of Tre Carroll’s three makes came back to back. It wasn’t a lot, but it kept the team above water.

And an eight point win over Marquette isn’t really a bad thing. It’s just hard to feel good about it when you allow 53 points in the second half and give away all but four points of a 21 point lead. Xavier was pitiful in the second half until they were able to rouse themselves. They were amazing in the first half but couldn’t make that last.

The don’t ask how, they just ask how many. But sometimes a good “how” goes a long way.