Big East basketball: Observations as Xavier Musketeers fall to Butler Bulldogs

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. − Xavier men's basketball team didn't have a second-straight comeback road win in them.

Visiting rival Butler Wednesday night, Xavier was blitzed from the jump as the Bulldogs celebrated Senior Night and their first victory at Hinkle Fieldhouse in nearly a month with a 72-66 win over the Musketeers.

Xavier, which was bidding for its third 3-game winning streak in league play, finishes the road portion of its Big East schedule 3-7. It's a missed opportunity for Xavier, which needed a big week to improve its seeding for the Big East Tournament. A pair of wins meant Xavier could've jumped as high as the No. 5 seed in next week's trip to Madison Square Garden.

Instead, Xavier dropped to 3-11 in Quadrant 1 opportunities and has another one on deck Saturday at Cintas Center when No. 8 Marquette comes to town.

The Musketeers (15-15, 9-10 Big East) will likely need a win and some help (a UConn win over Providence and a Creighton victory over Villanova) to avoid playing in the 8/9 matchup in the Big East Tournament opener March 13.

Xavier was playing its first game without freshman Dailyn Swain, who underwent a successful appendectomy Monday night and is out indefinitely.

"We've been undermanned, to some degree, from the onset of this season. Now we move to a different category," Xavier head coach Sean Miller said. "You could feel it during the game. We fought to the end. I'm proud of our guys. Butler had a great crowd, and this was their final home game of the year.

"We were in jeopardy of letting the score get lopsided and that did not happen."

Here's what we learned Wednesday night in Indianapolis.

5 observations from Xavier Musketeers' loss to Butler Bulldogs

1. Butler bulldozes Xavier out of the gates

Xavier couldn't afford another slow start on the road, and that's exactly what transpired as Butler used the energy from a near capacity crowd to set the tone early and often.

Xavier took a 4-3 lead early in the game but went scoreless over the next four-plus minutes as Butler reeled off a 17-0 run, highlighted by a 4-of-6 start from beyond the arc. The Bulldogs got a triple from DJ Davis and a pair from Michigan State transfer Pierre Brooks II to take a 20-4 lead.

Jahmyl Telfort was one of four Bulldogs in double figures, pouring in a team-high 18 points. Brooks added 14 on 6-of-10 shooting.

2. Desmond Claude a 1-man show in 1st half

Coming off a career-high 36 points in Saturday's comeback win over Georgetown in D.C., Desmond Claude paced a struggling Xavier offense that was sloppy and inefficient for the majority of the game. In the first half, Claude had 13 of Xavier's 24 points.

Outside of Claude, Xavier went just 5-of-21 from the field and 0-for-3 from beyond the arc in the first half.

Quincy Olivari, just 2-of-9 from the field in the first half, had nine of his 13 points in the second half. Dayvion McKnight matched him with 13 (11 in the second half) as Xavier's backcourt Big 3 combined for 65.2% of the team's scoring. Abou Ousmane tied Butler's Jalen Thomas with a game-high 10 rebounds and Olivari had nine. Xavier won the rebounding battle, 44-35.

3. Xavier can't repeat 2nd-half magic

Against Georgetown, Xavier shot over 70% from the field in the second half to rally from a double-digit deficit. The opportunity was there for the Musketeers Wednesday night, and they threatened multiple times but couldn't completely break through.

Xavier's defense was lackluster in the beginning but held Butler scoreless for more than 11 minutes in a span that started with the final 4:46 of the first half and stretched into the second.

"It seems like we're better in the second half than we are the first," Miller said of his team's defense out of the intermission.

Xavier cut the lead to 37-32 on a McKnight lay-in with 13:53 remaining, but Butler's offense woke up with three buckets over a 47-second span, followed by a Miller technical foul that stretched the Bulldogs lead to 11. Xavier cut the lead to five again with a pair of Claude free throws at the 9:28 mark, but Butler responded with a 9-0 run.

"Butler gave us a great opportunity during that stretch. We weren't scoring nearly as much as we needed to," Miller said. "When you get that many stops, you really have a chance to create transition opportunities − that's when we're at our best − and create some easier shots. We didn't convert on that. Not enough to put real pressure on them."

Xavier wouldn't get within single digits until the final minute of regulation off 3-pointers from Trey Green and Lazar Djokovic. The Musketeers were just 4-of-13 from deep for the game.

4. Turnovers the story early

Butler entered Wednesday night's tilt ranked No. 256 in KenPom in turnover percentage. The script flipped early in a turnover-filled first half for the visiting Musketeers, beginning on the opening possession when Big East veteran guard Posh Alexander (16 points, 6 rebounds) stripped Olivari.

Any momentum Xavier managed to capture in the opening 20 minutes was quickly wiped away with poor ball security. At the half, the Muskies had committed 10 turnovers to Butler's two.

Xavier had the ball down 53-48 with nine minutes remaining, but Alexander stripped Claude and went coast-to-coast for a lay-in, then hit a 3-pointer on the next possession to help the Bulldogs begin to pull away.

5. Miller wasn't bluffing

On his weekly radio show in Mariemont Feb. 26, Miller, displeased with his team's effort in a lopsided road loss to Marquette the night before, said walk-on Brad Colbert could see more minutes.

"I think that we’re gonna be very hard at holding our standard right there. If that means that Brad Colbert starts or Brad Colbert plays more − the one thing I know about Colbert is, he’s gonna give everything he has for the sake of the team," Miller told show hosts Joe Sunderman and Byron Larkin.

Miller wasn't kidding. Colbert checked in with 8:20 left in the first half and Xavier trailing, 27-16. Colbert played four minutes in the second half and made his only field goal attempt.

Miller said playing Colbert was to help keep Xavier fresh this late in the season while maintaining the team's up-tempo style of play.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: What we learned as Xavier misses opportunity with road loss to Butler