Weak Saturday Slate

#20 Xavier 60, Miami (OH) 53
All in all, yesterday wasn't a great day for college basketball. It never is when it's competing against regular season college football. Today's slate is much better. Still, there were a few big games to point out, including yet another close loss for Miami of Ohio against a quality opponent. It's got to be psychological at this point, they just panic down the stretch. They had a big fat second half lead here, but couldn't stop a furious Xavier comeback. But being able to pull out close games is what separates the Xaviers of the world from the Miamis of the world. Xavier looks like the solid favorite to take the A-10, or to take an at-large bid if they go down in the A-10 Tournament again. Miami of Ohio, meanwhile, is a long shot now for an at-large bid. It will probably come down to another MAC title game against Kent State. And it's too bad, because they're a good team. If they can learn how to win close games, they could still take the conference. They'd probably get a 12 or 13 seed, and they'd be a dangerous first round opponent. But to me, that's the ceiling for this team.

Dayton 89, #15 Marquette 75
Speaking of the Atlantic Ten, we now have a quality challenger for Xavier. With weak starts by Charlotte and UMass, and with the other chief contenders (like Saint Louis and Temple) showing serious flaws of their own, I was beginning to wonder if anybody would give Xavier a real run for their money. Dayton is now 6-0, with a real quality win. We knew that they lost a lot during the offseason, but all of their returners have improved on their quality play from last year. Sophomore Chris Wright, for example, has built on a solid freshman year to be even better this year. Remember, he was a big time blue chip recruit, so he was expected to eventually carry this team. A big addition has been Juco transfer Rob Lowery, who had a season-high 21 points off the bench here. For Marquette, I think this loss was something of a fluke. Their shooting was atrocious, including a combined 3-for-17 from behind the arc for the star trio of Dominic James, Jerel McNeal and Wes Matthews. You have to give Dayton's defense some of the credit, but not all of it. They have plenty of big out-of-conference opponents still to go, so they should still have a bunch of good wins heading into the Big East regular season. Marquette is still one of the better teams in the Big East, even though in my mind they're not quite in the league of Notre Dame or UConn. To me, they're going to settle somewhere between fourth and sixth in the Big East. It should be good enough for a solid seed in the Tournament, and the potential for another Sweet Sixteen trip.

#22 Villanova 78, Rhode Island 65
Speaking of the Big East, it was nice of Villanova to join this season with a legitimate opponent. Up until this game they had beaten up on five bad opponents, but this is a solid win over a solid opponent. I have to wonder how this schedule might lead them to have a big of a shock when they jump into the deep end at Texas in a couple of weeks. But this is a pretty experienced Villanova squad, with a lot of Big East games under their belts, so it shouldn't be a huge problem. They're not heavily dependent on freshmen. For Rhode Island, they now have two losses, but both have been against ranked teams. They still play Providence and Oklahoma State, along with a bunch of bad opponents, before the A-10 regular season starts. If they can win all of those games then they can challenge Dayton for the second A-10 Tournament spot. But I don't yet know if they're good enough for that. I'm not sold on Jimmy Baron being good enough to carry a team to the Tournament.