After a pair of lackluster road games, Xavier needed to get healthy at home. ECU and South Florida aren’t walking through that door though, so X was going to have to do it against a real basketball team with a winning record and everything.
Enter Creighton, KenPom’s #15 team. After a cagey start - this first FG didn’t come until almost two minutes in - the teams were within touching distance ten minutes in. Then Xavier ratcheted up the defensive intensity: in the next seven minutes, Creighton shot 1-10 and turned the ball over three times as X went on a 20-10 run to stretch the lead to 14.