The Strange Duality of Xavier

There is a palpable excitement around Xavier basketball right now. There was a massive press conference at the Cintas yesterday that was important enough to live stream. There have been breathless reports of meetings at steakhouses, of tracked flights, of reports of just who said what to whom and when. Twitter has exploded with reaction that has been almost positive. It’s nearly the end of March, and Xavier is making national headlines.

Weirdly, almost none of that has to do with Xavier’s actual basketball team which is, just in case you’ve forgotten, playing a national tournament semi-final on Tuesday. This isn’t just an outward facing critique, either. Since the 16th of March we have…