It would be hard to choreograph a more brutal finish to a basketball game for Xavier.
The Musketeers trailed Providence nearly the entire game on Wednesday until a Paul Scruggs 3-pointer with 51 seconds left gave Xavier a 62-60 lead – the Musketeers' first lead since it was 2-0.
At the other end, Al Durham, who Xavier had a hard time dealing with all night, got to the free-throw line and tied the game, 62-62, with 36 seconds left.
Out of a timeout, Xavier held the ball, running time off the shot clock and went with a designed play to get Scruggs downhill to his left hand. It was a good look for Scruggs and the ball snuck in the rim and somehow jumped out right into Providence's hands, and the Friars immediately pushed the ball to the other end and Jared Bynum buried the game-winning 3-pointer with just over a second left in the game.
"I've seen the play now about three times," Xavier head coach Travis Steele said. "The ball did everything but drop. They had a clean run-out. They got the rebound. I thought AK (Adam Kunkel) and Colby (Jones) were sprinting back, they tried, I think Colby went for the shot-fake on Bynum, made him dribble, then AK tried to go late contest. Heck of a shot by Bynum."
The loss is Xavier's second in a row and sends the Musketeers to 14-5 overall and 4-4 in conference play.
Another slow start
Playing from behind is clearly not a viable strategy for beating good teams.
Even with inserting Jack Nunge into the starting lineup for Jerome Hunter, Xavier dug itself another early hole and spent the end of the first half and the entire second half climbing out of that hole.
Providence made some shots early which helped the Friars build a 28-14 lead in the first half. Xavier did a nice job closing the half with some urgency and cutting that lead to 35-29 at the break.
"I thought our guys brought it," Steele said when asked about the slow start. "I thought we were competing and playing really, really hard. I never questioned our effort. Now they made some good shots, they made some tough shots. Al Durham made some heavily contested shots. So did Jared Bynum. You live with those."
Steele said he thought his team was getting better shots than Providence during the Friars' early run, the difference was Providence made its looks and Xavier didn't.
"We just couldn't get them to drop," said Steele.
Xavier finished 4-for-18 from the 3-point line and its two best perimeter shooters, Adam Kunkel and Nate Johnson, went a combined 0-for-10 from the field and 0-for-8 from beyond the arc.
Nate Watson, Providence's leading scorer, didn't score and only played 18 minutes due to foul trouble, but the Friars' backcourt burned Xavier all night. Durham finished with a game-high 22 points and Bynum had 16.
Xavier battled, but it wasn't enough
For as rough as the shooting was, the Musketeers fought their way back into the game, which is hard to do when shots aren't falling.
Xavier finished with 17 assists, only eight turnovers and the rebounding battle was even, 35-35.
The margin for error is razor-thin in the Big East. Xavier got off to a slow start, didn't shoot it great, let Providence's guard get downhill and attack the basket. In close games, the little things become big things.
"We can't allow the ball to get downhill like that and if it does get downhill like that we gotta switch it and our guys know that," said Steele. "We gotta be better in that regard but I thought our defense was good enough tonight, I really did.
"We gotta be better on the offensive end as far as just making the shots. I thought our execution was much better tonight. I thought our ball movement was way better. We just gotta get a couple shots to drop, especially there in the first half. When you get down by 14 ... it's just like you're playing from behind, it's hard in this league. But our guys fought, we clawed our way right back into the game, had an opportunity to win it there at the end."
Scruggs finished with a team-high 16 points. Nunge 15 points and nine rebounds. Zach Freemantle added 12 points and Jones finished with nine points and 12 rebounds.
It's a brutal loss for Xavier. There's no other way to put it. With a trip to Creighton on Saturday up next, Xavier needs to regroup in a hurry because two losses in a row can get out of hand in a hurry in the Big East.
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