Xavier's season-opener on Tuesday night was a lot more uncomfortable than it should have been and there were a few reasons for that.
The offense was far from beautiful or captivating and it certainly wasn't the reason Xavier managed to hold on for a 63-60 win over Niagara.
The defense gets a fair amount of credit for that. But Paul Scruggs gets the lion's share of the credit.
"He looked like an All-Big East guard. He looked like an All-American level guard," said Xavier head coach Travis Steele. "We need him to do that for 40 minutes from the jump. We ask a lot of Paul. He's gotta be able to score, he's gotta be able to play-make, he's gotta rebound, he's gotta defend.
"But he's fully capable of doing it. He was the reason we won the game, especially down the stretch he took over, willed our team to win."
After Niagara clawed back in the game late and cut Xavier's lead to 54-50 with a little more than three minutes left, Scruggs, who finished with a team-high 17 points, six assists and five rebounds, went on a tear that saved the game for the Musketeers.
First, Scruggs made a steal and got fouled. Then, he grabbed a defensive rebound and went coast-to-coast for a basket in transition. He followed that up with another steal and on the next offensive possession, got to the rim and scored, which capped a stretch of five straight Xavier points.
Jerome Hunter made four free throws late to keep it a multiple-possession game, but the result shouldn't have been that close.
The defense, for as good as it was all night, gave up some easy baskets late in the game and the offense compounded those mistakes with key turnovers and wasted possessions.
The biggest issue from the start, though, was Xavier's offensive attack. The Musketeers seemed a little too comfortable settling for jump shots, many of which were early in the shot clock, as opposed to attacking the basket and building the offense around that.
"We fell in love with the 3 early on," said Steele. "And I think we made three early (3-pointers) in the game and then all the sudden, everybody wants to shoot, it's like pop-a-shot, it's like you gotta earn your shots.
"That's what they wanted us to do, they wanted us to take quick shots. They want to hold the ball."
Steele said they needed to move the ball and drive it off that movement. And when Xavier did attack, Steele said, they weren't playing off two feet.
"I thought we played off one foot way too much in the paint tonight. In the half-court, you can't do that, that leads to turnovers and missed shots around the rim that we should be finishing if we play off two feet."
Xavier didn't make a two-point field goal until there was 7:40 left in the first half.
There was also no answer for Niagara guard Marcus Hammond, who was at the top of Xavier's scouting report. Hammond had a game-high 25 points and Xavier didn't have anyone who could stop him.
"We gotta pay attention to details," said Steele. "They kept setting those ball screens, they kept on slipping out of them to create a little confusion to get (Hammond) downhill to his left hand."
Xavier was unable to adjust to that wrinkle.
"We continually made the same mistake over and over again," said Steele. "We couldn't make that adjustment live like we needed to."
Steele said Niagara got nine points off slipping ball screens.
"And we talked about in the huddle, it's not like we're not talking about it," Steele said. "Our guys gotta be able to do it, though. Those are the things we gotta be able to clean up moving forward. You can't continually make the same mistakes over and over and over again and expect great results."
The Musketeers never trailed, but they were also never able to pull away or improve upon a 10-point first-half lead or a 13-point second-half lead.
Colby Jones had a nice night with 16 points, five rebounds and four assists. Hunter and Jack Nunge each had seven points and Dieonte Miles had nine points and seven rebounds, but Adam Kunkel, Dwon Odom and Nate Johnson all struggled offensively, combining for just seven points.
"We got a long road ahead," said Steele. "It's a marathon. We gotta continue to get better but we gotta learn from this win."
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