The Saint Xavier University men’s basketball team had their “last dance” taking on William Penn University (WPU) in the NAIA national tournament.
Seeded 16th overall and the last spot in their respective bracket, SXU was a major underdog heading into the tournament.
Unfortunately, the team couldn’t get the job done, falling to the number one ranked WPU 75-65.
The Cougars came out firing in the first half.
They recognized if they had any shot of winning this game, it was going to take guts.
The team led at halftime 33-28 shooting 50% from the floor and nearly 43% from the three point line.
Senior forward, Jack Halverson, continued his scoring hot streak by scoring a team high of nine points on fourteen total attempts in the first half.
Both junior forward Kevin Bishop, and junior guard Julian Barr, added eight first half points on 3-5 shooting.
The five point halftime lead for the Cougars was short lived.
While William Penn struggled shooting in the first half, making just 34.3% of their attempts and 7.7% of their threes, shots began to fall in the second half.
WPU shot 11% better from the floor and 29% better from three when comparing their first half to second half percentages.
It wasn’t even a case of bad defense on the part of Saint Xavier.
William Penn is an extremely talented offensive team with firepower from the inside.
Despite the loss, a lot of offensive numbers trend in favor of SXU.
Field goal percentage, three point percentage, and free throw percentage all point in favor of the Cougars.
So what went wrong for our team?
Obviously William Penn is an incredibly talented unit and were the heavy favorites coming into the game.
Saint Xavier put up a valiant effort to pull off an upset, but ultimately that is not what was expected of them.
With all that being said, SXU missed a real opportunity to do something special in this game.
For one, they had a five point halftime lead.
Though in the modern day of basketball with more three point shots and more foul shots than ever, really no lead is safe, making five points fairly insignificant.
The real issue for the Cougars was maintaining their lead in the second half.
SXU committed seven turnovers and seventeen personal fouls in the second half.
Counter that with four turnovers and eleven personal fouls, and you start to see a bigger picture.
That alone however, doesn’t explain a fifteen point second half difference.
SXU was outscored 47-32 in the second and didn’t exactly have the same first half magic.
The biggest issue for this team was running into a more physical and more disciplined basketball team.
WPU out rebounded Saint Xavier 49 to 30, a nearly impossible deficit to overcome if you want a shot at winning a basketball game.
This difference allowed WPU to score eleven second chance points compared to just two from Saint Xavier.
William Penn also has an outstanding defense, making scoring for the Cougars much more difficult than they had seen in the past.
The team shot 10% lower from two and three when comparing the first and second halves.
While this is ultimately a disappointing end, the men of this team played well over expectations.
The Cougars have a lot to be proud of and a lot to focus on heading into the offseason.
This should be a hungry unit looking to strike again next season.
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