Xavier University Athletics
Xavier Finishes Regular Season By Rolling Over UMass
03.02.02 | Men's Basketball
?We beat a very good basketball team,? said Xavier head coach Thad Matta. ?I thought in the first half, they were able to execute everything they wanted. I told my guys at half, ?We?ve got to get tough. We?ve got to get stops.? In the first half, we were very impatient defensively. I thought we did a much better job in the second half.?
?Winning the conference championship is the hardest thing to do? said Matta. ?Finishing 14-2, I was happy for our guys to be able to celebrate (by cutting down the nets).? Xavier set a school record for A-10 wins with 14. Xavier?s 14-2 A-10 record betters the previous best of 13-3 set back in the 1996-97 season.
Xavier controlled today?s game from the start, using a 7-2 run early in the first half to grab a 19-11 lead with 11:11 left before intermission. After UMass closed to within two points at 29-27, XU ran off a 9-0 run to take an 11-point, 38-27, at the 1:55 mark. The Minutemen managed to close the gap to six points, 38-32, at halftime.
Xavier outscored UMass 12-3 to open the second half, giving the Musketeers a 50-35 lead with 13:29 left. The visitors got no closer than 10 points the rest of the way.
Xavier used a balanced scoring attack and mistake-free ballhandling to its advantage. XU had a school record low three turnovers for the game.
School records three, four and five came in the form of attendance marks. XU enjoyed its school record 13th home sellout of the season, while also setting single season records for attendance average (10,224) and total attendance (143,129).
Leading the scoring parade was Xavier All-America candidate David West, a 6-9 junior forward from Garner, N.C., who hit 9-of-13 from the field to finish with a game-high 22 points to go with six rebounds. Lionel Chalmers, 6-0 junior guard from Albany, N.Y., collected 13 points, six assists, five rebounds and three steals, while Romain Sato, 6-5 sophomore guard from the Central African Republic, contributed 13 points and a game-high 11 rebounds.
Senior forward Eric Williams led UMass (12-15, 6-10 A-10) with 15 points.
In the two-year history of the Cintas Center, Xavier has compiled a 26-2 home record, including a 15-1 mark against Atlantic 10 foes. Today?s win avenged XU?s only loss at the Cintas Center to an A-10 team, which came against UMass last season.
Xavier, the top overall seed in next week?s Verizon Atlantic 10 Championship, has a first round bye. XU will play its first game on Thursday at 12:05 p.m. in Philadelphia against the winner of the first round Massachusetts-George Washington game, which will be played on Wednesday at 12:05 p.m.
