'A special group of guys.' Xavier men's basketball made 1st Elite Eight 20 years ago today

A middling team in January, the 2004 Musketeers caught lighting in a bottle at the right time, advancing to the Elite Eight for the first time in program history, 20 years ago today.

Will Caudle woke up in an Atlanta hotel on March 28, 2004, looked outside on a 58-degree morning and turned to his roommate, Justin Cage.

“We’re playing Duke for the Final Four, bro,” Caudle told Cage. “We could probably do this.”

Less than two months earlier, it was inconceivable to believe that Xavier would be playing meaningful March basketball. Yet, there they were in the Georgia Dome, making program history and symbolizing March Madness as they prepared to face the blueblood Blue Devils in the Elite Eight.

“It was a special group of guys,” Lionel Chalmers said. “We all believed.”

Here’s how it happened.

The reload before the run

Xavier was a No. 3 seed in the 2003 NCAA Tournament. Aspirations of a deep run were dashed in a second-round loss to No. 6 Maryland. The Musketeers had key pieces returning in 2004, with one glaring departure in two-time consensus All-American and 2003 AP Player of the Year David West.

“Other guys had to step up,” Chalmers said. “We were trying to find the right combination of players on the court together.”

The foundation was still there with senior leadership in Romain Sato, Anthony Myles and Chalmers, there were a few pieces needed to complete the puzzle.

That was easier said than done.

January blues

Xavier came out of the gates strong. The Musketeers opened the New Year with a 21-point win over Alabama (which would later go to the Elite Eight), then beat Rhode Island in the A-10 opener to improve to 9-4.

Xavier couldn’t build any momentum, though, losing five of its next six games. After an 81-60 road loss to George Washington Jan. 28, Chalmers had an emotional message in the locker room − chairs were flipped, walls hit.

“That’s a side of Lionel (Chalmers) I haven’t seen,” sophomore Dedrick Finn would say in a documentary of the 2004 squad.

Three days later, a 74-67 setback to Dayton dropped Xavier to 10-9, last in the A-10 West. The Crosstown Shootout was up next.

“We weren’t special in the regular season,” Romain Sato remembers. “We needed that game (vs. UC). If we could win that game, we could turn our season around.”

‘That game changed everything for us.’

Bob Huggins’ UC Bearcats were No. 10 in the nation when they visited Cintas Center. Bearcats’ leading scorers Jason Maxiell and Tony Bobbitt were NBA-bound and had led UC to a 13-0 start that year.

One message from head coach Thad Matta turned everything around for Xavier when it needed it most.

“When coach Thad Matta said, ‘let’s go have fun,’ it flipped a switch for us. It was a huge thing,” Caudle said.

If Matta wanted fun, the Crosstown Shootout was euphoric. In typical Shootout fashion, the two rivals contiounously swapped leads with momentous buckets. Chalmers delivered the dagger, though, knocking down a mid-range jumper with 27 seconds left to lead Xavier to a 71-69 win.

You could feel the season swing as the final buzzer sounded.

“Lionel hit that game-winner and for whatever reason we came together and trampolined off that,” said Justin Doellman, who turned 19 years old that day. “We carried that momentum and kept chipping away.”

The Run

Looking back, Doellman remembers the feeling of walking into a Division I college basketball program as a wide-eyed freshman from just across the river in Union, Kentucky. The Ryle High School product wanted to have an impact, but never imagined it’d be as a starter.

“Lord, no,” Doellman laughs. “I wanted to be a part of a team that I could help in whatever role that looked like.”

That role looked like a starting 6-foot-9 forward who would average 7.3 points per game. Fellow freshman Justin Cage joined the starting lineup for the UC game. That was the rotation that fueled Xavier’s late-season surge.

“We were able to figure it out at the right time,” Chalmers said.

Figure it out they did. Xavier won nine of its final 10 regular-season games. The Musketeers cruised past St. Bonaventure, 90-64, in the first round of the A-10 Tournament, then faced the No. 1 team in the country in undefeated Saint Joseph’s.

Matta’s message? The undefeated Hawks had all the pressure, not the scrappy underdog Musketeers.

“That message resonated to all our players and staff,” Caudle said.

The ‘have fun’ mantra rolled on against No. 1 Saint Joseph’s, which boasted a backcourt of future first-round picks Delonte West and Jameer Nelson. Xavier shot an A-10 Tournament record 71% from the field to spoil the Hawks’ perfect season, 87-67.

It was another springboard for Xavier, which parlayed that upset into wins over George Washington and Dayton to become the first A-10 Tournament team to win the conference title with four wins in four days.

“Any time you face the highest level, and you challenge yourself to prepare and come out successful, it’s always a booster,” Chalmers said. “Regardless of who was in front of us at that time, I think we could’ve beaten anybody. We had our believe system and found our rhythm.”

‘There is really nothing like it.’

Matta jokingly said he had planned for a vacation during the NCAA Tournament to the Florida Keys when Xavier was 10-9. Instead of poolside pina coladas, Matta and company were preparing for Rick Pitino and Louisville in the first round at Amway Arena in Orlando.

The players make the shots, grab the rebounds and steal the passes that win games. But to pull off a string of March Madness upsets, a coaching staff takes the lead with detailed game prep and scouting. That’s where Xavier had an advantage with Matta and assistant Sean Miller. Having two current Big East coaches on the same staff paid dividends down the stretch.

“We took scouting to another level,” Caudle said. “When coach Miller does the scouting, he knows to a tee how everyone plays. That duo really sent it to another level.”

Xavier, a two-point underdog to Pitino’s Cardinals, rallied from a 14-point second-half deficit for an 80-70 victory behind 49 combined points from Sato and Chalmers. In the second round against Mississippi State, the 4.5-point underdog Musketeers exploded with a 55-point second half to pull away for an 89-74 win. Chalmers led the way with 31, Myles grabbed 14 rebounds and Finn had 22 off the bench, including a halfcourt heave at the first-half horn to give Xavier a 34-33 lead at the intermission.

“Nobody had us winning those games,” said Doellman, who had 13 points and 8 rebounds in the Round of 32.

Xavier tried its best to ignore the outside noise that comes with a tournament run. They had seen the worst of a college basketball season at 10-9 when postseason basketball was an afterthought. The feeling of not being good enough to read your press clippings still resonated during the Madness of March.

Then, the team bus turned the corner to Cintas Center well after midnight on the Muskies’ return from Orlando. A couple hundred Xavier fans were ready to celebrate the Sweet 16.

“There is really nothing like it,” Sato recalls. “It’s the best.”

Chalmers added: “One of the greatest experiences you have as a player.”

Among the elite

When he was a senior in high school the year before, Doellman was watching Rick Barnes’ Texas Longhorns in the Final Four against Carmelo Anthony-led Syracuse. Now, he was on the biggest stage, lining up against the Longhorns.

“You’re really just trying to enjoy that moment,” he said. “You’re watching these guys on TV just wishing you had the opportunity to play against them. A year later, I am.”

Xavier, underdogs again, got a simple pregame huddle pep talk from Chalmers.

“I know y’all love it, but how much do you want it?”

Xavier led 44-41 at the break, then got the stops it needed at crunch time. The Musketeers held off a late Longhorns’ rally and a Bill Raftery “Onions!” call after a Texas triple with 16 seconds left. A late Texas 3-pointer to tie it in the final seconds was off the mark. Finn grabbed the rebound and was fouled with 3.9 seconds left. He tucked the ball in his left arm and pumped his right fist in the air. Running alongside him, Chalmers had one finger pointed to the heavens.

Xavier was in the Elite Eight for the first time in program history.

“They got the heart, they got the mind – they just refuse to lose,” Matta told CBS Sports’ Solomon Wilcots on the court postgame.

Xavier’s 2004 success lives on

Ask most of the players involved in an NCAA Tournament run how fast it goes. From the final buzzer, to scouting for the next opponent, there’s little time to bask the glory of moving on in the bracket.

“We were hooting’ and hollering’ in the locker room (after beating Texas) and it’s like let’s catch the catch the bus and figure out who we’re playing next,” Doellman said. “You don’t really have time to soak it all in. I wish I had that perspective looking back on it.”

Caudle added: “We celebrated for a minute. Thad got us refocused.”

A trip to the Final Four was on the line. Xavier was set to face Duke, a mainstay in March Madness.

Xavier led Duke in the Elite Eight 30-28 at halftime, but couldn’t overcome the loss of Myles, who fouled out with 12:27 remaining and the Musketeers up, 44-41. Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s club had six NBA players in the rotation and the Blue Devils prevailed, 66-63.

Still, the 2004 team left its mark. Once a program that had not advanced past the second round of the NCAA Tournament since 1990, Xavier’s regional final run helped lay the foundation for a program that would go to the Sweet 16 six times over the next 13 years, including three trips to the Elite Eight.

“We knew in our hearts we could pave the way for Xavier for years to come. Any player that comes to Xavier understood we’re a family and we all care about each other,” Caudle said. “We were a very unselfish team and we hoped that would carry over to the teams after us. I would say it did.”

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This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Xavier basketball made program's first Elite Eight 20 years ago today