By PAUL GOTHAM
LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLA. — Chris Mack’s Xavier Musketeers started out-of-character. The seventh-year coach responded and found a new contributor and an improved defensive look for victory.
Xavier’s bench outscored their counterparts as the Musketeers erased an early hole on their way to 64-45 victory over the Alabama Crimson Tide in the first round of the 2015 Advocare Invitational played at the HP Field House.
Makinde London scored a career-high six points including two during a pivotal sequence as Xavier rallied from seven down to improve to 5-0 on the season.
“I’m really excited for Makinde,” Mack said. “Makinde hasn’t got as much playing time as he’d like, but it’s a process. He came in and gave us a huge lift.”
Moments after Xavier grabbed a one-point edge, London denied Alabama’s Dazon Ingram. At the other end of the floor, London, who came in averaging less than four minutes per game, took a feed from Myles Davis and finished on the break.
“I tell these guys all the time different nights, different guys,” Mack said. “And that includes our bench.”
Moments later, London drilled a three from the top of the key to make it 26-19 game, and Xavier never trailed again.
“He came in and gave us a huge lift. He was going to the rim on both ends of the floor rebounding and blocking shots. That’s what we need out of him. Big time energy. Especially on the defensive end. With every player on our team nights offensively aren’t going to come to fruition, but your defensive effort has to be there.”
Xavier struggled out of the gate and fell behind 9-2. Alabama used a 9-3 advantage on the boards to fuel their early momentum. The Musketeers switched from man to man to a 1-3-1 on defense.
“It really, really changed the game,” Mack noted. “We haven’t been very effective with it the last two games that we played. For us, it’s a way to keep our big guys in the lane.”
Disadvantage quickly turned to advantage, and the Musketeers finished the night outrebounding their opponents 47-31.
“It definitely changed the game,” Mack commented. “Keeping our bigs in the lane. They’re not necessarily all over the place. Keeping their team on the perimeter. We’re sort of in the lane. It doesn’t make any sense to put their players in the lane. Now it’s really congested. So they put players on the perimeter except maybe one kid. Shot goes up, and then we have numbers available.”
The Crimson Tide also struggled to generate any rhythm against the defense.
“I think you can prepare for it, but the thing about it is, you really have to do the same thing every time offensively,” Mack explained. “It sort of dictates what you do. Two-three, man-to-man, teams can have a lot in their playbook. There’s only so much you can have against a sort of 1-3-1 type look.”
Alabama finished the night 17 of 55 from the floor including 5 of 28 behind the three-point arc.
“We got to go back and look at how many contested shots we took tonight,” Alabama coach Avery Johnson said. “We want to contest on defense, but we like our wide open shots. We’ll go back and look at it. Should we have made one more pass? Were we balanced on our shots? We have a much better three-point shooting team than we showed tonight.”
The Musketeers outscored Alabama 37-21 in the second half.
“We’re going into the halftime down by three feeling pretty good,” Johnson said. “It kind of fell apart for us in the second half. That’s what happens against a very experienced team that know what they’re doing. They took advantage of it.”
Xavier’s Trevon Bluiett led all scorers with 15. The sophomore guard hit 5 of 10 from the floor including 2 of 5 from long range.
“Our energy on the defensive started us off,” Bluiett said. “We kinda fueled off it from the defensive end. Once everyone gets on that same page, the sky’s the limit.”
J.P Macura added 14 off the bench. Jalen Reynolds scored 10.
Shannon Hale and Justin Coleman tallied ten apiece for Alabama.
Xavier will take on the winner of the USC – Wichita State game. Alabama gets the loser.
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