After taking down Rick Pitino and the Iona Gaels the Gators move on in the National Invitational Tournament to take on the Xavier Musketeers for a chance to get one step closer to the championship game in Madison Square Gardens.
Xavier’s season was a bit of a disappointment after they entered the year with a talented, veteran group that many thought would be a top-25 caliber team. In the non-conference they were able to grab some quality wins over Ohio State, Virginia Tech, and Oklahoma State (while only losing to Iowa State on a neutral floor) which had expectations high entering Big East play. There, the Musketeers’ defense slowly fell apart and their offense became less potent resulting in an 8-11 league record and ultimately an NIT invitation.
Adding intrigue to this game between the Gators and the Musketeers (which will take place Sunday, March 20th) is the surprising timing of a Xavier coaching change. Coach Travis Steele’s seat was getting hot, but no one expected what ultimately happened, which was Xavier winning their opening game of the NIT against Cleveland State and then the news coming out that Xavier and Steele had parted ways. That means Sunday’s game will be a matchup of teams without head coaches which could make for some interesting basketball.
Fortunately for Xavier, they’re in rather good hands. Assistant coach Jonas Hayes will be the acting head coach against the Gators and he is a very well respected assistant whose name has been in the mix for head coaching jobs at the high major level, including the opening at Georgia where Hayes previously served as an assistant. Coaching transitions are always difficult, especially when the timing is as sudden as it was for Xavier, but don’t expect them to look disorganized or incapable of executing late since they have Hayes holding things down.
In terms of contextualizing the Gators and Musketeers a natural place to begin would be the NET ranking, the NCAA’s official sorting tool. Florida is 59th and Xavier is up at 40th, making Xavier the bubblish team that almost could have made the big tournament as an at-large. Where Xavier hurt was in a couple of the predictive metrics such as KenPom where they rated as the 65th best team.
However you slice it, this should be a tight matchup between two teams who think that they should have been in the NCAA Tournament. As Xaver was the higher seed this game will be played at their arena in Cincinnati where they often have quality home support.
Overall, Xavier is a team that is well rounded and doesn’t have a single star that they run everything through offensively. Forward Jack Nunge leads the Musketeers in scoring at 13.4 points per game, with Paul Scrugg, Colby Jones, Nate Johnson, and Zach Freemantle all averaging just over 10 points per game each. Their five double-digit scorers make it that there isn’t a clear game plan to stopping their offense as if you try to take away one or two players, the three others on the floor are more than capable of creating shots and making things happen offensively.
Generally speaking, Xavier’s offense is all about getting shots at the rim. Whether it’s post ups, dribble drives, or players coming off curls going downhill, it’s all about getting action going towards the rim. When building a roster you can tell that Travis Steele was all about height and length, something apparent when you see his starting lineup of Paul Scrugg (6’5”), Nate Johnson (6’4”), Colby Jones (6’6”), Zach Freemantle (6’9”), and Jack Nunge (7’0”). Seeing all that height, it’s clear they are looking to control the paint and get as many shots near the rim as possible.
Where they’re deficient is behind the arc where they were 249th in the country in three-point percentage while not taking many attempts. Steele prioritized length over shooting, and the result of that are several players on the floor at once who aren’t floor spacers. This was a problem for them when they wanted to post up their leading scorer Nunge who would often get double teamed without enough shooters around him to punish defenses for spreading themselves out. The Gators are a team that likes to double team the post and they will be able to do it pretty aggressively knowing that Xavier doesn’t have a lot of guys to punish them on the outside for doing it.
Nate Johnson is the one shooter the Gators will really need to key on. He’s shooting 39% from deep on almost 6 attempts per game and he’s always hunting wide open threes off Nunge’s post ups.
Ultimately for Xavier their offense was good enough to win more games than they ultimately ended up getting but it was their defense that was problematic, something you might not expect for a team that’s so long from positions 1-5. While the length on the perimeter provides a lot of value for them, their two-big lineups of Zach Freemantle and Jack Nunge were often taken advantage of by the high powered Big East offenses who were able to draw them out into space and take them one on one. Xavier will occasionally mix in a small dash of zone but they’re generally a man to man team who likes to pack the paint and take away the rim but opponents were often able to get Freemantle and Nunge into unfavorable matchups on the perimeter and when that happened Xavier was in trouble. Xavier finished the season 185th in the country in pick and roll defense and 344th in the country in isolation defense, numbers that aren’t good enough to win games against teams with talented guards.
Florida doesn’t have a lot of one on one perimeter threats offensively so they aren’t built to fully take advantage of Xavier’s deficiencies but Tyree Appleby is the one guard that could punish the Musketeer bigs for getting out into space. The Gators should be aware of the game plan that was successful for so many Big East teams to gash the Musketeers’ defense and look to do the same for easy buckets.
In the opening game of the NIT the Gators were able to play with enthusiasm in front of their home crowd but it may be a bit more difficult to find motivation on the road in a tough environment. This will be a matchup of two teams that thought they should have been playing in the NCAA Tournament and when that happens in the NIT it can end up being the team that wants it more that ends up victorious.
This game takes place Sunday, March 20th at 1 PM and will be broadcast on ESPN.