Despite the Thanksgiving holiday, the Saint Xavier Men’s Basketball team had plenty of games last week.
The Cougars kicked off the week on November 20th by playing the 21st best team in NAIA, Trinity International University, at the Shannon Center. SXU entered the game with a 3-3 record, while Trinity International entered the game with a 5-3 record.
The game started with both teams trading the lead until SXU finally pulled ahead 37-33 with a few minutes to go before the first half came to an end.
The Cougars maintained control and lead 44-37 to end the first half.
The second half started with the Cougars keeping the lead until Trinity was able to close the gap and tie the game 69-69 with five minutes to play.
From there, the SXU offense was unable to get much done and Trinity jumped out to a 79-71 lead with one minute left to play.
Saint Xavier were unable to mount a comeback and eventually lost the game by a score of 83-73. The Cougars fell to 3-4 on the year, while Trinity improved to 6-3 on the year.
After their close loss to Trinity, the Cougars participated in the SXU Thanksgiving Classic on November 23rd and November 24th at the Shannon Center.
On the first day of the tournament, the Cougars played Northwestern College. SXU entered the game with a 3-4 record, while Northwestern entered the game with a 4-4 record.
Northwestern jumped out to a 16-8 lead, but less than five minutes later, the Cougars took the lead with a Jack Halverson jumper that put them up 25-24.
SXU continued their hot streak and jumped out to a 51-39 lead with four minutes left to play. Northwestern attempted a comeback, but failed, and the first half ended with the Cougars up 61-56.
The second half started with Northwestern getting on a hot streak and jumping out to a 77-70 lead with 15 minutes left to play.
The Cougars were able to make a comeback and tie the game at 90 with nine minutes left to play. After that, Northwestern got a lead and did not relinquish it for the rest of the game, eventually ending it with a 114-103 victory.The Cougars fell to 3-5 on the year, while Northwestern improved to 5-4 on the year.
The Cougars wrapped up the SXU Thanksgiving Classic by playing East-West University on November 24th.
The Cougars jumped out to a 24-13 lead just eight minutes into the game.
However, the Phantoms were able to close the gap and jumped out to a 50-36 lead with a few minutes left in the first half. The first half came to a close with East-West up 52-41 over Saint Xavier.
The second half started with more of the same dominance from the Phantoms, but the Cougars were able to mount a comeback and close the gap to a one point lead for the Phantoms.
Both teams played with all their strength and the score eventually tightened to a 91-89 lead for the Phantoms with four seconds left.
However, the Cougars were unable to accomplish anything except for foul and the game ended with East-West winning 93-89. The Cougars fell to 3-6 on the year.
This week was not a good week for the SXU Men’s Basketball team, going 0-3 in three very close games.
However, the Cougars should keep their heads high, because if they manage to work out how to close a game down the stretch, they have a bright future.
The Cougars play twice next week, once against Roosevelt University and once against Indiana University-South Bend.
Chris Leonchik
Sports Editor