Xavier Musketeers carry ashes of February struggles into Sweet 16

– This is the third appearance in the Elite Eight for both Xavier and Gonzaga.

“As players, when we look at that jar, we just know to move forward and that the past is done with and we’re going to look forward to playing more games”.

If eleventh-seeded Xavier can defeat top-seeded Gonzaga to advance to the Final Four in the NCAA Men’s Division I basketball tournament, the Musketeers will no doubt become a sentimental favorite to win this year’s national championship, throwing March Madness into full fury with the kind of Cinderella story that Gonzaga themselves had when they first came onto the national scene.

Trier’s final shot missed, securing the win for the Musketeers, and Xavier will face Gonzaga on Saturday with one certainty on the line: The victor will go to its first-ever Final Four. “It’s not because I used to be there”.

This season, his role has increased exponentially, starting every game for Chris Mack’s program. “He had his way with us tonight”. The Mountaineers rebounded both misses but couldn’t get another shot off in the final 13 seconds.

You just wouldn’t expect the team to go away from its versatile scorer for such a long period of time. Kadeem Allen scored five points down the stretch but missed a game-tying layup in the final 30 seconds.

Arizona’s own stud shooting guard, Allonzo Trier, went on a 15-0 run all by himself in the second half, and the Wildcats had a 69-61 lead with under three minutes to play. Bernard hit two free throws with 2:07 left to cut the lead to two, and with 1:53 on the clock, Bluiett drew a foul on Markkanen, and tied the game at 71-71 with two more free throws. Arizona launched 27 3-point shots and made just seven. Well, I guess we will find out that answer on Thursday, but from the looks of the weekend that Mark Few’s squad had, I would say that narrative seems pretty spot on.

Xavier avenged a 68-60 loss to Arizona in the 2015 Sweet 16 in Los Angeles.

Neither Mack nor Miller have ever had a losing season in Division I. Mack is 186-90 in eight seasons, all at Xavier. It’s been a while since the program has done it. The Musketeers needed to “turn the page”, as Mack has said so often since, and so they went ahead and burned the page while they were at it. That could be all bettors need to know, especially considering the Musketeers are getting 8.5 points from Gonzaga in their Elite Eight matchup Saturday, with the total set at 145.5 points. Shooting 28.6 percent from the field and a 1.11 assist to turnover ratio is not what he was looking for in the dance. Markkanen did not attempt a shot in the last 11 minutes of the second half as 11th-seeded Xavier pulled off an improbable 73-71 upset of the second-seeded Wildcats. Bluiett assisted on the other basket.

“We stuck together”, J.P. Macura said. The Wildcats appeared to be in good shape to knock off the Musketeers for the second time, leading by eight with about four minutes left.

“Equally disappointed in myself”, Miller said.

Another deep run into the NCAA Tournament, another year without reaching the Final Four. He got a question like that during his press conference after beating West Virginia in the Sweet 16.

The losing streak almost knocked Xavier out of NCAA Tournament contention, but a late-season run not only got them into the bracket but through to the Sweet 16 for the sixth time in 10 years. Xavier sophomore G Edmund Sumner was averaging 15 points and 5.0 assists before suffering a season-ending knee injury January 29. The team with the second best field goal percentage in the nation during the season has put up these numbers in its three NCAA Tournament games: 39.7, 44.1 and 40.9.