Xavier v. Dayton: Box Score Breakdown

What happened: Xavier 66 - Dayton 62

How many was that shot worth?

In a game vastly different but no less hotly contested than the matchup earlier in the year, Tu Holloway led the Muskies past UD. Is there a more valuable late-game guard in the entire nation? With five and a half minutes left, UD had come to within five of Xavier and the arena was cacophonous. Tu then scored 12 of Xavier's last 14, didn't miss a field goal or free throw, and didn't turn the ball over. When he stuck the three with 42 seconds left to put X up five and ice the game, Byron Larkin proclaimed that Tu has shown "time and time again that he has the willingness to take the big shot and the confidence to knock it down." Holloway's final line was 26-5-5 with 2 steals on 8-17/2-7/8-9 shooting.

Kenny didn't get to the tin today.

Dayton's game plan for Kenny Frease was seemingly to keep the big man from being a weapon at or near the basket. The first time around, Kenny was 1-3 on jumpers and 6-6 on layups. Today, he was 2-4 on jumpers but only 1-3 on layups. Fewer, more inefficient trips to the rim didn't help Frease's ability to contribute to the game, and his 20-5-0 from the last game against UD shrank to 8-4-1 today.

Much of the narrative information drawn from a box score is inferred rather than implicit, so take it with a grain of salt when I say that I think Jeff Robinson and Dante Jackson both came to play today. Dante's shooting line of 1-5/1-3/0-0 isn't very encouraging, but he also came up with a team co-leading six boards and a block. Jackson hates to lose to Dayton, and the little things that filled up his line on a poor shooting day show just that. His rebound co-leader was Robinson, whose final line of 8-6-0 on 3-5/0-0/2-4 shooting with no turnovers may speak to a rising level of confidence. With that amount of length and athleticism he brings to the table, his ability off the bench has the potential to swing the momentum of a game.

Odds and ends:
-Cheek was 3-4 on layups and 0-1 on two-point jumpers. The fact that he was getting all the way to the rim was good; the fact that he missed all five of his threes really dragged his line down.

-Chris Johnson's 22-9-2 on 6-12/4-7/6-7 shooting was really impressive. That guy is going to be a matchup nightmare in the NIT.

-Xavier outperformed Dayton 31-28 on the glass, which was a nice turn around from last time these two teams met.

-As always, stay tuned for a full recap from Brad and the Twitter Recap.