A series of false dawns

Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina, "every happy family is alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I don't know if that's true because I've never actually read the book, nor have I met a representative sample of families, but it doesn't matter in this case. If Tolstoy were writing for our website, he might have repurposed that same energy to write, "every good performance by Xavier is alike; every bad one is bad in its own way."

In case you've forgotten - and judging by the general energy of the fanbase right now, many of us have - Xavier has played well at times this season. They've won 17 games, including 5 in Q1 and another 4 in Q2. If the tournament started today, they'd…