Watch, Monitor, Don't: January 13, 2023
Not the choicest meats and cheeses this week but still something for everyone
We’re spreading it out a little more this weekend after our previous entry was heavy on the Saturday spread.
Much of what else might take your attention away from college basketball is beginning to wind down. College football is over; we’re down to the short rows in the NFL. The NBA and NHL are hitting the midseason lull, international soccer is recovering from its post-World Cup hangover and there’s no Olympics in 2023 to concern yourself with, should you care to. But still. It’s a lot. So much to watch, keep track of, gamble on (if that’s your thing), tweet about while you can. You’re but one person, with a phone and a tv and a laptop, maybe an iPad, perhaps another tv or two… my point is, you have a finite number of screens to devote to Division I hoops the next couple of days. Let me help you with your weekend viewing plans.
As always, the weekend starts at 7 p.m. ET on Friday; apologies to a choice Ivy League battle between Yale and Cornell during Happy Hour.
Must Watch (Times ET)
No. 25 Marquette at No. 12 Xavier, 12 p.m., Sunday (FOX)
You gotta hand it to FOX here. Realizing they weren’t in the early window* for this weekend’s NFL Playoff games, they put a throw-away game between preseason unranked Marquette and preseason unranked Xavier in this slot way back in September… and now it’s the marquee game of the weekend and guaranteed to steal eyeballs away from a putrid Miami-Buffalo matchup that could be over by the second quarter.
* - This was going to either the noon or 4:30 game, according to an article on BigEast.com dated September 9. This was always going to be FOX’s counter-programming to CBS’s playoff standalone game. And it’s beautiful and perfect.
Xavier’s average points per game the last five seasons:
2018-19 — 72.2
2019-20 — 70.7
2020-21 — 74.8
2021-22 — 74.1
2022-23 — 84.4
Well, gee whiz gang that seems like a significant leap! I wonder what’s happened? It’s certainly not a Sean Miller effect; his previous Xavier teams were of the sort of Musketeer sides I think we’ve come to expect, with enough offense to work thanks to toughness and defense. The Travis Steele-with-a-side-of-Jonas Hayes team from a year ago wasn’t this divergently off-script from Typical Xavier. So what gives?