Tough start dooms Muskies against Duke

The Xavier University men’s basketball team came out stagnant, sluggish, and possibly awestruck in what had been dubbed by some as the biggest game in the history of the school’s regular season play, falling behind 18-1 in the first four minutes and falling to Duke University 82-64 on Saturday.
The Musketeers (9-1), allowed Duke to make eight of their first 10 shots –including three made three point field goals – to build what would prove to be an insurmountable lead before the first television timeout at 16:00 left in the first half.
“Clearly the start had a lot to do with today’s loss. Being down 18-1, it becomes hard no matter what you say because the fact is that you are down 20 points almost immediately,” Xavier had coach Sean Miller said. “Their start -- which they do to a lot of teams -- was the signature in today’s game.”
While Duke was lighting it up from the field early, Xavier could not get anything going offensively against Duke’s pressure defense, missing their first four attempts, turning the ball over four times and missing three of four free throws.
“Maybe in some aspects [we were a little bit scared],” junior forward Derrick Brown said. “That is not the team that we have seen through 46 practices and nine games. That is not the team that we are accustomed to being. It is disappointing because on a big stage like this we want to show everybody who we are. But you have to give credit to Duke. They came out and punched us in the mouth.”
The Musketeers would never be able to recover from the early hole, as Duke wings Gerald Henderson (19 points on the afternoon) and Jon Scheyer (23 points on 5-7 three point shooting) carved up Xavier’s signature pack-line defense with penetration and kick-out three point jump shots.
While Xavier would shoot 16-26 (61.2 percent) for the second half, it would not do much more than slim the final margain of victory against Duke’s second unit.
Falling flat in the much-anticipated matchup was the last thing on the minds of the Musketeer players as they made their journey to New Jersey, and proved to be a tough pill to swallow.
“I guess it has not sunk in yet. I am disappointed. No doubt that Duke is a better team, but not 18-1 better than us [to start the game]. I know that for a fact,” Brown said.
Xavier’s will have to prove that they truly are a better squad than they showed on Saturday as they move forward, something important with Butler (No. 2 in the RPI rankings) coming to Cintas Center on Tuesday, Dec. 23.
“It is important to move to the next game,” Miller said. “I don’t like the deficit that we lost by today, but we have a big picture. That means we have to be 10-1 after we play Butler. To have that record would be something to build on going in to our conference,” Miller said.