College Hoops Top 50

Last Year: 16-18; 9-11, Eighth in the Big East Conference, No Postseason

Head Coach: Sean Miller (Third Year; 163-75 in seven years combined at Xavier, with five NCAA Tournament appearances)

Projected Starting Lineup

PG Dayvion McKnight – 6’0″, 190 5th-year Senior

G Dante Maddox, Jr – 6’2″, 190 5th-year Senior

G Ryan Conwell – 6’4″, 215 Junior

F Zach Freemantle – 6’9″, 227 5th-year Senior

F/C John Hugley IV – 6’11”, 270 Senior

Experienced Reserves

G Trey Green – 6’0″, 168 Sophomore

G Roddie Anderson III – 6’3″, 190 Junior

G Marcus Foster – 6’5″, 215 5th-year Senior

W Dailyn Swain – 6’8″, 220 Sophomore

F Cam’ron Fletcher – 6’7″, 230 5th-year Senior

F Jerome Hunter – 6’8″, 225 5th-year Senior

Sean Miller is entering the third year of his second stint at Xavier with a third consecutive very different roster. There will still be continuity, though, because a couple of prodigal X-men are set to re-enter the picture. 

The return to health of Zach Freemantle and Jerome Hunter – guys that have been Musketeers since before Miller returned to Cincinnati – is a development which fans have been anxiously awaiting. The fifth-year forwards were each out for all of last season, and their return is just part of what has been a major talent infusion. Despite Miller’s work in the transfer portal last spring, Xavier ended up lacking the quality depth to hang with the best teams in the Big East. The Musketeers stumbled to a 16-18 record, the program’s first losing season in nearly three decades. 

When the portal opened this year, Miller and his staff made it clear that such results would not be tolerated. The Musketeers landed seven proven-productive players to augment a varied returning core, and those efforts have Xavier looking like a threat again. 

Leading the way will be the point guard Miller brought in last spring, Dayvion McKnight. A two-time All-CUSA selection while at Western Kentucky, McKnight’s first season at Xavier may have been his finest. While he didn’t set new career-highs in scoring – or any other counting stats, really – McKnight was more efficient than ever, pretty much across the board. With the Hilltoppers, McKnight often had to do a whole lot of everything. Last winter, with a couple of other big-time producers around him, McKnight settled in nicely by playing a fairly classic point guard’s role. 

The crafty veteran is great at generating offense off the bounce, and McKnight gets off a great variety of shots while on the move. His growth last year proved that McKnight has also become a quality spot-up shooter. As departed guard Desmond Claude proved to be a highly impactful pick-and-roll ballhandler, McKnight got the occasional opportunity to operate as a shooter. McKnight’s splits last year can play anywhere; he made 59.6% of his attempts near the rim, 41.8% on mid-range tries, and a career-best 37.2% from downtown, per Bart Torvik. He’s never been a high-volume outside shooter, but McKnight’s ability to keep the defense honest makes him all the more dangerous. When he wasn’t canning his own looks, McKnight facilitated well enough to rank sixth in the Big East in assists. He struggled at times with turnovers at WKU, but McKnight cut his career turnover average nearly in half as a Musketeer. He handed out more than three helpers for every miscue, and a repeat of such clean living will help McKnight to kick Xavier’s offense into high gear with the talent that’s now around him. 

If Freemantle is healthy enough to be the guy he was when it all fell apart midway through the 2022-23 season, Xavier will regain one of the best players in the Big East. He has missed chunks of each season since his freshman year, and Freemantle has endured three surgeries on his left foot. The ‘if’ in ‘if he’s healthy’ carries a tremendous weight, but it’s not just anyone who can do the range of things at 6’9″ which Freemantle can do. A highly skilled forward who can score, rebound, and pass at a very high level, Freemantle is a star who Miller can run lots of offense through. When Freemantle went down in 2022-23, he was enjoying one of the most absurdly efficient shooting seasons of any big man in the country. A capable jump shooter, Freemantle’s three-point percentage had been in a steady decline entering his fourth year. Apparently, he took that personally, because at the time of his exit from the lineup in late January, 2023, Freemantle had made 14 of his 22 (63.6%) triple tries on the season. 

For his career, Freemantle is a 50.8% shooter from the floor, and he’s a slick scorer around the paint. While it’s not likely that he’s going to post an NFL quarterback’s competition percentage from downtown again, Freemantle has well proven that he must be guarded all over the floor. He is not a bruiser, and the constant nagging injuries have likely sapped some of Freemantle’s proclivity for the rough stuff, but he has always put up numbers on the boards. If Freemantle is well enough to throw his weight around inside, it will add a lot to a Xavier post which was particularly flighty last winter. Only adding to the building hype for his return, Miller has atated that Freemantle is in the best shape of his life this summer. There are lots of if’s, but a truly healthy Freemantle could transform the Musketeers and provide them with a true go-to guy.

Five Stats Which Tell The Tale (with national ranks)

43.6% – Team FG Percentage (247th)

43.6% – Opponent FG Percentage (136th)

16.2 – Assists Per Game (28th)

16.1 – Opponent Assists Per Game (335th)

74.6 – Opponent Points Per Game (265th)

As part of one of the nation’s most dangerous offenses, Ryan Conwell enjoyed a terrific all-around year for Indiana State. After starting 21 games at South Florida as a freshman, the versatile guard transferred to Terre Haute, IN, and blossomed as a sophomore. The All-Missouri Valley pick finished fourth in the conference in scoring, tenth in rebounds, and Conwell finished 15th nationally with 109 made triples. His shooting splits were almost enough to make Freemantle jealous; Conwell shot 61.3/40.7/85.5% on two’s, three’s, and freebies. A big guard with genuine ball skills, Conwell is a dynamic secondary playmaker. With the threat of his outside shot forcing opponents to close out in a hurry, Conwell has the size and handle to slash into the lane for a bucket or dart a precise pass off to a waiting teammate. His size is also helpful defensively, and if Conwell can prove that he’s up to the challenge of guarding Big East scorers, he will play a major role for Xavier. 

After biding his time behind some of the best scorers Furman has seen in decades, Marcus Foster broke out in a big way last year. What might have been had he not missed almost two months with a knee injury, the folks in Greenville, SC, will never know, but now that he’s in Cincinnati, Foster is looking to get back to winning big. A powerful guard who became a voracious rebounder last season in the Southern Conference, Foster can get to the rack and cause problems on his way there. Foster started last year hot, and dropped a couple of 30-pieces back-to-back in mid-November. After returning from his injury in mid-January, Foster appeared frustrated at times and not entirely healthy, but he battled to keep the Paladins afloat in SoCon play. Over Furman’s final 16 games, Foster posted five double-doubles, and proved tough to keep out of the lane even though he wasn’t 100%. Though his deep ball wobbled throughout the year, Foster had been a 36.0% shooter from deep the previous two seasons, and he scores from all over. A somewhat streaky shooter overall, when Foster is hot, he can absolutely light it up. That should make him a good fit for a team that will have multiple guys who can take their turn.

Miller’s banditry of the mid-major ranks far from over, the Musketeers also landed Dante Maddox, Jr, from Toledo. A quality shooter who plays a solid all-around game, Maddox became the star of a loaded Rockets backcourt last winter. A strong two-way player, Maddox was a key playmaker in Toledo’s free-flowing motion attack last year. He’s a smart player and ballhandler and has always played it fairly clean when operating the offense. An excellent 40.1% career shooter from long range, Maddox hit 72 triples last year and tends to choose his spots well on the perimeter. 

“We compete and shoot against each other, keeping track of makes and misses,” Maddox told the Sean Miller Podcast this summer, marveling at the outside prowess of his new teammates. “We’ll go through a legit full-speed, intense endurance workout, and at the end of it, we shoot four or five hundred shots with 85 to almost 90% of those shots going in on a good day.” The trio of Maddox, Conwell, and Foster bring generally complimentary skills, and should be relatively interchangeable the off-guard spots for Miller. 

“If there’s one player I would point to [who] you want to embody the culture of a team or a program, it would be Jerome because he just simply plays to win.”

– Sean Miller

Hunter is a tough, smart, versatile forward who became a starter when Freemantle got hurt. From that time on, Hunter averaged 10.3 points and 5.9 over the final 15 games of Xavier’s season. From that point on, he’s had to work incredibly hard to overcome a succession of ailments – he was close to returning last winter, but cruel fate led to Hunter tearing his Achilles just before rejoining the team. Now, Hunter is finally on the cusp of a return to meaningful action. If his toughness hadn’t been proven resoundingly enough by the end of Xavier’s Sweet Sixteen run two years ago, there’s no doubt about his uniquely indomitable will following more than a year of seemingly constant rehab. 

“If there’s one player I would point to [who] you want to embody the culture of a team or a program, it would be Jerome because he just simply plays to win. And everybody in our locker room knows it. He knows it,” Miller praised Hunter in March of 2023. “I’m just incredibly happy for him, and as a coach, I’m very proud of what he’s become.” While he once tried to shoot from the outside regularly, Hunter focused his efforts closer to the basket when last he was part of the Musketeers’ rotation, and will continue to get his points in a burly fashion this winter. He was at last fully cleared for full basketball activities near the end of September, and X fans are enthusiastically awaiting the moment Hunter is reintroduced to them inside the Cintas Center. 

Xavier also hopes to utilize the services of Florida State transfer Cam’ron Fletcher at some point this season, but he’s enduring his own cycle of rehabilitation following the second significant knee injury of his college career. When healthy, he’s an explosively powerful wing who can cause mismatches around the paint by bullying most defenders. Given all the misadventures that his players have endured recently, Miller made a promise to Fletcher and his family upon his commitment to Xavier that the coaching staff would bring Fletcher along carefully as he gets back to full health. 

“We really are patient. He’s made great progress…I look at more of October/November where he’ll be cleared and be like everyone else. That’s probably optimistic,” Miller explained when discussing Fletcher this summer. “In terms of functionally, he looks the part. He’s more and more confident every day, he’s worked hard in the weight room and his strength is maybe ahead of where we wanted it to be. We’re gonna err on the side of caution so that his best days are ahead of him, even beyond this year.”

Five Out-of-Conference Games to Keep an Eye on

N Michigan/Virginia Tech – November 27

@ Cincinnati – December 14

vs Wake Forest – November 16

@ TCU – December 5

N South Carolina – November 25

To play in the middle, allowing Freemantle and Hunter to operate out of their natural 4 spot, John Hugley IV has been brought in from Oklahoma. Though he came off the bench as a Sooner, Hugley put up big numbers three years ago (with a medical redshirt in between) at Pittsburgh. He’s a low-post scoring big, but last winter, Hugley proved that the three-point range on his jumper is rather legit. Going back to the start of 2022-23, when he got hurt, Hugley has splashed 18 of his past 43 (41.9%) deep heaves. There aren’t going to be many Musketeers who aren’t deep threats this year. He isn’t fast or terribly fluid on the perimeter, but given spot-up opportunities, Hugley can really space the floor – his four-for-four day from the outside was pretty much a knockout blow to Southern Cal last November. Miller will want to get him rolling in the paint, too, and wants to see the best defense of Hugley’s career in order to earn an expanded role against Big East competition. Reports have indicated that Hugley is in tremendous shape this fall, and that he dropped 50+ pounds over the summer in anticipation of a big performance to come. 

Xavier was not a strong team on the defensive glass last winter, so adding a guy like Lassina Traoré, who has averaged a double-double two years running, seemed like the correct move. Unfortunately, Traoré hurt his knee in fall practice and looks like he will miss the season recovering. Hugley’s importance – and that of Freemantle and Hunter staying healthy – have been ratcheted up accordingly. While he isn’t a natural post player, talented young wing Dailyn Swain has grown big and strong enough to potentially help out inside this winter. A sensational athlete who possesses perimeter skills, Swain can get vertical without much effort or space to gather himself. Now that he’s checking in at 6’8″, 220 following the almost 30 pounds of muscle he’s reported to have added this summer, Swain ought to help out in a variety of ways this year. 

Newcomer Roddie Anderson III and Trey Green, McKnight’s backup last season and likely their heir to his spot next season, are young guards who can score and create in different ways. After a standout freshman campaign at UC San Diego, Anderson transferred to Boise State last spring. On a veteran team which needed a pure floor general to run the show, Anderson was mismatched. He started 27 games and played a key support role for an NCAA Tournament team, but a reserve role at Xavier should allow Anderson to better develop his skills. He is a playmaker, and Anderson can be exciting off the bounce and when he’s making things happen on his way through the lane. If he can find some consistency with his jumper, Anderson could take off. 

Green ended up being Xavier’s fifth-leading scorer last year despite averaging 13.5 minutes per game. That says some not-great things about the previous company of Musketeers, and also some great things about Green. He is a slick passer who should be more comfortable in a playmaking role this winter, and Green can really shoot. He made 38 triples as a rookie, though at a 32.2% rate. Reports this summer indicate that Green has been scorching the nets in practice, and if he can carry that confidence into his second season, opponents will get no reprieve from the barrage of triples when Miller turns to his bench. 

There aren’t many teams that have endured as many severe, long-term injuries the past couple of years as Xavier. Even so, Sean Miller has kept adding talent to orbit around the guys who can play, and the Musketeers have shown that they will battle regardless of the gaps on their lineup. 

“I’ve learned being in the Big East for two years is you can’t understate the importance of depth,” Miller asserted in October at Big East Media Days. “You know, when you get through the injuries, foul trouble, when you think about February in this conference, the physicality can really take its toll on a younger guy and a team that doesn’t have depth. And I like our depth.”

This year, Xavier should remain dangerous offensively, and be legitimately capable on the glass and defensively, as well. They’ll run, and there are some guys who can really get out and go on this team. They are also, by and large, more responsible defensively than in some previous seasons. That commitment to playing two-way basketball is the sort of composition one needs to contend in a league like the Big East. With experience, better health, and a burning desire to get back to winning big that’s been tempered by tireless work behind the scenes, Xavier is poised to enjoy themselves once again this winter.