Posted: 12/13/06 Section: Sports

Illinois' Warren Carter dunks the ball during the second half of Friday night's game against Xavier at the US Bank Arena in Cincinnati, December 30, 2006. Carter finished the game with 14 points and 5 rebounds, but the Illini fell short and lost 59-65.

CINCINNATI - The Illinois basketball team lost to Xavier 65-59 at the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati on Friday night.

For the second straight year, the Musketeers jumped out to a double-digit lead in the games opening minutes, but - just like last season's 65-62 Illini win in Chicago - they couldn't maintain it and the Illini rallied to make the game close.

Now, before I give you my opinion on how well the Illini and Musketeers played in the game, I believe it is important that we first remember the circumstances in which the game was being played.

Entering Friday night's contest Illinois had not played a game in eight days while Xavier had not been on a basketball court in nine. Obviously the Christmas holiday is the reason for the significant time off, and I believe that is a viable excuse for the sluggish offense and shooting performances both teams displayed for most of the game.

Second, both Xavier and Illinois have dealt with injury problems through the first two months of the season and are not yet accustomed to playing with a complete roster of players.

While neither one of these circumstances necessarily exempts the poor play both teams displayed during the game, it does serve as a legitimate reason that the game was not as crisp as possible.

With that said, Friday night was an ugly game. From the air-balled 15-footers to the abundance of turnovers, it just wasn't the type of game either team wanted to play in their first contest after Christmas.

Sure, Xavier started out hot from the three-point line and the Illini used a decent offensive stretch to claw back to 26-25 lead at halftime, but neither offense showed anything impressive enough to mention in this space.

Now I could attribute that to strong defensive efforts by both teams, but I don't think that's the case. Illinois' on-the-ball defense was decent, but their rebounding was terrible. And Xavier's rebounding performance overshadowed their defensive laziness in the low post.

Continued...

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