Richard Pitino gets a third chance to take a coaching milestone when Xavier hosts Old Dominion Tuesday night in Cincinnati.
Xavier’s first-year head coach has another opportunity to earn a career No. 250 ranking after missing his first two chances.
Xavier (2-2) suffered blowout losses to Santa Clara on Nov. 10 and to Iowa on Friday after starting the season with wins over Marist and Le Moyne. Old Dominion (2-2) was eliminated Saturday at George Washington, 96-73.
When the Musketeers lost 81-62 at Iowa, they were outscored 50-26 in the paint and outscored by a score of 41-24. Still, Pitino saw a stronger effort from his team compared to the 87-68 rout at home by Santa Clara four days earlier.
“What I’ve seen is growth,” Pitino said. “I think we were all disappointed with our effort against Santa Clara. I didn’t think it was an effort issue (against Iowa). We’ll learn from it. Iowa is always a tough place to play, but I thought the attitude and the will was there.”
Tre Carroll leads Xavier with 13.8 points per game and has been the only Musketeer to score in double figures in all four games.
Old Dominion trailed just 44-41 at halftime Saturday at George Washington. But the Revolutionaries scored 26 points in the first eight minutes after intermission and the Monarques never recovered.
“We didn’t come out in the second half with the energy we needed to,” Old Dominion coach Mike Jones said. “They went on that stretch (in the first half) and put us down 10 points. We came back and came back from 6 points down, and we showed a lot of resilience. I was disappointed in the second half. Obviously, it wasn’t our best night.”
KC Shaw leads ODU with 15.8 points per game without the benefit of 3-pointers while LJ Thomas is averaging 14.3 points and a team-high 4.3 assists.
Xavier will celebrate the 25th anniversary of its first men’s basketball game at the Cintas Center. Xavier, led by David West, defeated Miami (Ohio), 68-54, on November 18, 2000, behind the late coach Skip Prosser.
–Field level media
