The Xavier Musketeers improved to 9-1 as they downed the Colorado Buffaloes, 96-69.

Xavier shot the lights out of the ball early in the first half. They jumped out to a quick 13-5 lead by the first media timeout, as they were getting looks just about everywhere. They took advantage of a porous Buffs defense all over the floor.

By the under-12 media timeout, the Musketeers extended their lead to 31-10 and by the under-six timeout, it was up to 44-18.

Momentum shifted towards Colorado when they capitalized on a 2:30 scoring drought for the Musketeers to close the half, bringing the game to 49-33.

But from the opening minutes of the game, there was truly no doubt that Xavier would emerge victorious. They strung another strong offensive showing together and Colorado simply had no answer. The Buffs couldn’t rally back as the Musketeers were fortified by decisive defensive play. They held CU to a dreadful 38.5 percent from the floor.

Stats

Xavier

Trevon Bluiett: 25 points, 7 rebounds

J.P. Macura: 17 points, 2 steals

Tyrique Jones: 11 points, 7 rebounds

Sean O’Mara: 10 points

Quentin Goodin: 10 points, 8 assists

Colorado

Namon Wright: 20 points

McKinley Wright: 16 points

Three Takeaways

The 3-point game

Xavier filled it up from 3-point land today. They shot an incredible 64.3 percent from beyond the arc. We all know the Musketeers have some deadly sharpshooters and they came out in full force tonight. Macura alone was a perfect 3-3 and Bluiett went 50 percent (3-6) from shooting past the arc. Talk about efficiency!

The In/Out Option

The Musketeers seemed to have really established a nice in-and-out game, being able to score baskets from both close and far from the rim. Moving forward, this can be a recipe for success. Xavier collected half of its points from within the paint. This scoring split makes the Musketeers as versatile a team as ever, not to mention having guys that can score through many avenues.

Consistency from the Big Men

Last year, the biggest concern was the play of the forwards and as of this point, there’s a drastic difference in the production of the big men this year. While Kerem Kanter stole the show the last two games, O’Mara and Jones both got into double figures tonight. Having bigs that can score is instrumental in a team’s offense because that means the guards don’t have to shoulder the entire offensive load.

So far, the bigs have outplayed the bigs of opposing teams and I’ve been very impressed with their production.

The Musketeers have placed themselves in a prime position for a Top 10 spot in the AP poll. Especially with a couple of Top 10 teams losing this week. The ball keeps rolling for the Musketeers, and as conference play is looming, momentum is all the more important. Everything seems to be clicking for a Xavier team that has proven game in and game out to be one of the best teams in the country.