Crawford’s 28 lift Xavier over Minnesota
March 19, 2010
MILWAUKEE (AP)—Jordan Crawford made a strong return to the NCAA tournament.
Crawford scored 17 of his 28 points in the second half and Xavier kept itsrun of tournament success with a 65-54 victory over Minnesota in the first roundof the West Regional on Friday.
Xavier (25-8) will be in the second round for the fourth straight year, thistime under first-year coach Chris Mack.
Mack has a star in Crawford, the Indiana transfer playing in his first NCAAtournament game in two years. But it was far from a one-man show.
Dante Jackson smothered the Gophers’ best shooters on defense, Jamel McLeanhad 14 rebounds and Crawford provided the highlight plays for the sixth-seededMusketeers.
Lawrence Westbrook scored 15 of his 19 points for Minnesota (21-14) in thefirst half, and the 11th-seeded Gophers went cold from 3-point range late.
Xavier will face the winner of Pittsburgh-Oakland in the second round.
Crawford shook off his sluggish start by continuing to shoot and by his lastattempt, he looked like he had no desire to leave the court.
With 38 seconds left and Blake Hoffarber’s hand in his face, the sophomoreguard hit a 3-pointer falling away into the Xavier bench with his teammatesjumping up and down behind him to give Xavier a 63-54 lead.
Crawford didn’t show much emotion, moving slowly to center court to embraceTerrell Holloway.
This one means so much for Crawford, who had only a sour experience in hisfirst NCAA tournament with Indiana in the aftermath of the Kelvin Sampsonfiasco.
Crawford has been under five coaches in two years, but has found his placeas one of the Atlantic 10’s top talents. After a 4 of 11 first half, he camealive after a driving, off-balance scoop with just over 17 minutes left.
He found his niche by continuing to work to get to the rim.
Crawford made another dazzling move with just over 13 minutes to play whenhe caught an outlet pass and sliced between Devoe Joseph and Colton Iverson foranother layup.
Jackson added a 3-pointer and Mark Lyons got into the act with a 360 spinfor a layup to make it 54-42. With 7:07 left, Crawford’s 3-pointer gave Xavier a55-44 lead and the celebration was on.
The Musketeers seemingly had every answer down the stretch againstMinnesota, which had played its way into the tournament by winning seven of itsprevious 10 under Tubby Smith.
Smith was looking for his 30th NCAA tournament win and first with his fourthprogram after stops at Tulsa, Georgia and Kentucky, but Minnesota lost for thefourth straight time in the first round to join early exits in 1999, 2005 and2009.
The Gophers haven’t won an NCAA tournament game since 1997’s Final Four run,and those wins have since been vacated.
Minnesota fell apart after it couldn’t get a shot to fall from beyond thearc. One of the better 3-point shooting teams in the tournament, the Gopherswere 5 of 11 from 3-point range at halftime, but 2 of 15 after.
And while Minnesota’s stifling defense early forced Xavier into shooting 21percent from the field in the first half, the Gophers couldn’t keep pace afterhalf.
Westbrook missed all eight of his second-half shots after starting 6 of 8from the field. Hoffarber, who came in shooting 47.2 percent from 3-point range,went 2 of 6 for the game.
Mack had been an assistant at Xavier for seven years under Skip Prosser andSean Miller and took over when Miller took the job in Arizona. In some ways, hisseason has been one of the Musketeers’ most impressive since they didn’t returna single player who averaged double figures last year.
Xavier certainly has few worries with Crawford, who grabbed brief fame forhis dunk on LeBron James at a summer camp in the offseason and is making alasting impression on college’s biggest stage.