Men’s basketball looks to bounce back from loss

The Xavier Musketeers’ men’s basketball team comes into the week with a record of 12-9. Conference games began when they played Temple on Jan. 10 and are now coming into full-swing. The team defeated the Dayton Flyers at home and then lost a close game at Richmond. However, the team hopes to carry over the winning mentality they had against Dayton in this week’s matchups against
Duquesne and Fordham. Xavier will be traveling to
Pittsburgh on Saturday to play Duquesne, a team with a record of seven wins and 14 losses. A few key aspects to look at with this team is that they play much better at home than they do away, with a home record of 6-4 and an away record of 1-9. Duquesne has a very dismal conference record of 0-7, and avier will look to make sure they don’t get their first conference win against the Musketeers. Senior guard Sean Johnson for Duquesne is their leading scorer averaging 13 points a game and shooting a solid 32 percent from behind the arc. Another senior, center Andre Marhold, is the leading rebounder
for Duquesne with 5.6 boards per game. Marhold averages 5.6 points per game, but he excels in his blocking ability and field goal percentage. He is shooting a solid 48 percent from the floor and has 28 blocks this year. Senior forward Travis Taylor will look to add on to his 250 points this season but will have a tough time battling down low against Marhold. The Muskies travel back to Cincinnati to play Fordham in Cintas Center where Xavier will hopefully extend their home record of 8-2 to 9-2. Fordham has an overall record of 6-16 on the year with a 2-5 conference record. The statistic to note within their record is that they are 0-11 on the road this year. When looking at this, it is clear Xavier should have the upper-hand. Junior guard out of Brooklyn New York Branden Frazier is Fordham’s leading scorer and arguably their best player. Last season, he was the second leading scorer for the Rams, leading the
team in assists and three-pointers made. He scored 22 points and grabbed five rebounds against Xavier last season. This year he is the Rams’ leading scorer. Frazier must be contained by the likes of guards freshman Semaj Christon and sophomore Dee Davis in this matchup in order
for the Musketeers to have a good shot at winning the game. The Musketeers will then travel to Kingston, Rhode Island and come back to play a very tough VCU team here at Cintas Center.