Cedric Johnson in a game from the 2022-23 season SXU Athletics
By Jotham Israel
In Friday’s game, Saint Xavier traveled up to Rochester Hills, Michigan for a pair of games that were part of the Rochester Hills/Travis Bass Classic.
For the second time in his three years as the Head Coach of Saint Xavier’s men’s basketball team, Robert Ford will be tasked with navigating through a roster that lost multiple key players from the previous season. Along with other key contributors to last year’s team, Jaeden King, a third-team NAIA All-American, and Jack Halverson, an All-CCAC Second Team nominee, have both graduated.
These departures have once again paved the way for new players to fill in new roles and returning veterans to take on bigger roles as the Cougars began their 2023-24 season.
SXU vs. Rochester University: 73-77 (L)
Saint Xavier played the Rochester Warriors in their first game of the season, a highly contested game that turned into a narrow loss for SXU with a score of 73-77.
The Cougars found themselves in the midst of what was a very physical game against the Warriors. The two teams combined to commit 43 fouls in the entire game, with 27 of those fouls going against Saint Xavier.
Sando Hill, the new starting point guard for SXU, fouled out with 6:34 left to go in the game with the Cougars trailing 64-58.
Although Hill was the only player to foul out, he wasn’t the only Cougar in foul trouble. Andre Brandon, Cedric Johnson, Marko Tojagic and Mason Ross each finished the game with four fouls, forcing the Cougars to have to utilize more of their bench.
Saint Xavier fought back to tie the game at 69 with less than two minutes to go in regulation, but a three-pointer by Rochester’s Brandon Michrina and a steal by Warriors guard Anthony Cukaj put the Cougars in a hole they couldn’t climb out of.
SXU vs. Cleary University: 60-52 (W)
In Saturday’s game, the story was different for the Cougars. Saint Xavier was able to not only stay out of foul trouble against the Clearly Cougars, but they controlled the paint and played stout defense en route to a hard-earned 60-52 win.
Along with only giving up 52 points, Saint Xavier held Cleary to 37.3 percent shooting from the field and forced 20 turnovers, with nine of those turnovers being steals by SXU.
Those turnovers by Cleary led to 15 SXU points, which proved to be the difference in this low-scoring game.
A big storyline coming into the season was how SXU was going to retool their roster with many key players from the past two years now no longer on the team. Only six players returned from the 2022-23 team that finished the year with an overall record of 24-8 and a CCAC conference record of 16-4.
Two of the players who have excelled in these first two games for the new-look Cougars are aforementioned Sauk Valley transfer Andre Brandon and returning All-CCAC Second-Team nominee Cedric Johnson.
Brandon, a junior forward from Coralville, Iowa, posted double-doubles in both games to start his SXU tenure. He had 19 points and 10 rebounds against the Warriors and scored 14 points along with grabbing 11 boards against Cleary.
Johnson, who played a team-high 813 last season, led the Cougars in scoring in both games over the weekend, scoring 28 points on Friday and 21 on Saturday.
Junior guard Trey Ward is expected to see much more playing time than in his previous seasons. Ward is one of two players who have been on the team for four years. He hadn’t seen much action because of the team having numerous productive guards in recent years.
Instead of transferring to another school, Ward stayed put, and he was rewarded for his patience and hard work when he started the first two games of the season. He appeared in 29 games last season, but only started in one and averaged 14.8 minutes per game.
Freshman guard Jordan Streeter earned a starting position right away for the Cougars alongside Johnson, Brandon, Hill and Ward, although the Cougars bench has seen their fair share of action in the early going.
The Cougars’ next game will be their home opener against the Missouri Baptist Spartans. Tip-off is scheduled for Nov. 8 at 7pm in the Shannon Center.