Game Notes: Charlotte @ Xavier

After holding on for a hard-fought 57-54 win over visiting St. Bonaventure on Saturday night, the Charlotte 49ers men’s basketball team travels to Cincinnati, Ohio to take on Jordan Crawford and the Xavier Musketeers Wednesday night (7:30 p.m. 1660 AM with Matt Sweirad.) Crawford, who is probably most well-known for dunking over LeBron James in a summer camp, is leading the Musketeers in scoring at 19.4 points and 4.9 rebounds per game.

Also having a strong season for the Musketeers is sophomore Terrell Holloway. The Hempstead N.Y. shooting guard is averaging 10.4 points per game and is Xavier’s leading free-throw shooter at 90 percent. At 10-5, Xavier is only three losses away from equaling their 2008-09 season total, but are still protecting their home court like always. The Musketeers are 7-0 at home but are just 2-5 away from Cintas Center.

After longtime head coach Sean Miller left to take over for Lute Olson at Arizona, Chris Mack stepped up to take over the Musketeers. Mack, who turned 40 years old on Dec. 30th, is the 17th head coach in Xavier’s program history and recorded his first A-10 victory against La Salle on Jan. 7. He was also a two-time team captain as a player for Xavier and has spent the previous five seasons as an assistant under Miller.

Xavier and Charlotte split two meetings in 2008-09. B.J. Raymond scored 28 points to lead Xavier to a 69-47 home win over Charlotte on Jan. 28th. In February, Charlotte got 16 points from junior Ian Andersen on their way to a 65-60 home win over the 15th-ranked Musketeers.

This game will feature two of the top teams in the A-10 as well as two teams coming off conference wins. Jason love scored 19 points and pulled down 13 rebounds while Crawford scored 18 and grabbed eight rebounds to help Xavier overcome an 11-point halftime deficit to beat George Washington 76-69 Sunday afternoon. Charlotte got their first conference win the night before when they held on against St. Bonaventure, 57-54.

To get a rare win over Xavier at Cintas Center, Charlotte will need to start taking more high percentage shots and not committing as many turnovers. Charlotte scored more than 80 points in seven of their first nine games of the season, going 8-1 but since the Gardner-Webb game, the 49ers have broken the 80-point plateau just once and are averaging just 65 points per game. Charlotte is shooting just under 43 percent from the field this season and just 31.6 percent from behind the arc.

For the Niners, it’s pretty simple. Get high-percentage shots inside with Chris Braswell and Shamari Spears and slow down Xavier’s high-octane offense led by Crawford. If Charlotte can feed the ball into the paint to Spears and Braswell, it should open up the outside and allow Derrio Green to have a big night. With the departure of Shamarr Bowden, expect to see more playing time from freshman Gokhan Sirin.

This is a very important game for Charlotte. The Niners play three of their first five conference games on the road and a win at Cintas Center against Xavier would do a lot for the players’ confidence and would look good on Charlotte’s NCAA Tournament resume’.