There's no way to sugarcoat it.
Saturday was a bad performance for Xavier's men's basketball team.
The Musketeers have been playing with fire recently and they got burned by inconsistency with a 69-65 loss to DePaul at Cintas Center.
The loss doesn't ruin Xavier's season. The Musketeers dropped one spot in the NCAA's NET rankings to No. 21, but it does pin Xavier in a corner for one reason.
More:Incomplete performances catch up with No. 21 Xavier in home loss to DePaul
Right now, the Musketeers don't look like a team that's improved after 22 games. And with how important the next month is, that's a dangerous place to be.
When head coach Travis Steele met with the media following the loss to DePaul, a lot of what has been said repeatedly over the last few weeks was said again.
"We have to get it figured out. We have to be able to put 40 minutes together," Steele said.
The slow start on Saturday, Steele attributed to his offense, which he said took eight bad shots in the first half. Link that with six first-half turnovers and it's not hard to see why DePaul led by as many as 13 points in the first half and took a 34-27 lead into halftime.
"We gotta play smarter. We gotta work to get Xavier a great shot. Not me a great shot, not myself, the individual," said Steele, who singled out Xavier's guard play as one area that has to be better at the start of games.
When asked how they get that fixed, Steele said, "I don't know if it's changing our starting lineup even more."
Against a team like DePaul that switches defenses, Steele said it's harder to control the offense through set plays, so the Musketeers have to be able to rely on making the right plays.
That didn't happen in the first half on Saturday.
Nate Johnson and Adam Kunkel struggled again. Together they shot 1-for-9 and combined for three points. Johnson played only 10 minutes. Kunkel played 15 minutes.
Sophomore point guard Dwon Odom got 28 minutes and was one of the few bright spots for Xavier with eight points (4-for-4 from the field), five assists and no turnovers.
Odom might be the guy Steele was referring to when he suggested changing the starting lineup.
"I tell those guys, 'if you want to play more then play better,'" said Steele. "I'll play the guys that are playing really well. That's what we're gonna do. That's the blessing of having depth on a team like we have is we're gonna roll with the hot hands. Dwon obviously had it rolling tonight and we played him a lot of minutes."
Steele said he wants his team to be mad and pissed off. They should be.
Teams have to evolve over the course of the season. Xavier's been stuck in neutral, though, the last few weeks.
"We have to learn. You have to grow. You have to get better," said Steele. "And if you're not doing that, other teams will get better and they're gonna pass you by.
"Again, there's a lot of season left here. A lot. And we want to peak at the right time. I have complete belief in our locker room in there. We will absolutely figure it out and we're gonna finish really strong."
Xavier gets the chance to do that. The Musketeers are capable of playing good basketball and finishing strong. Now they need to prove it.
The schedule Xavier's staring down isn't messing around. Four of Xavier's next five games are Quad 1 opportunities.
The season's not over. Xavier has eight regular-season games left, but the only way out is to play with urgency and find a response.
When and if that response comes will determine a lot for Xavier. It's a place most teams find themselves at one point or another during a season. And this is the fourth straight season Xavier's found itself here in February.
Xavier is 16-6 and 6-5 in the Big East with a couple of games on the way next week at Seton Hall and home against UConn.
It's the first week of February and Xavier's an NCAA Tournament team, which doesn't mean anything in the first week of February.
What matters is if that statement's still a fact a month from now. It's entirely up to the Musketeers.
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