​CINCINNATI, OHIO – OCTOBER 23: Jovan Milicevic #24 of the Xavier Musketeers dunks against the Kent State Golden Flashes during the second half of an exhibition game at Cintas Center on October 23, 2026 in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Photo by Tanner Pearson/Getty Images) | Getty Images On February 1, 2005, Anberlin released the album Never Take Friendship Personal, which included the track “The Feel Good Drag”. The chorus of that song declared “this was over before, before it ever began,” which is only interesting in that Xavier scored the first 13 points of this basketball and functionally buried it as a contest before the first media timeout.Mount St. Mary’s won the tip, and that’s pretty much where the good news ends for them. Xavier’s scoring on the season opened with a Jovan Milicivec three. Next time down had the same result for Xavier. Mike Nwoko and Filip Borovicanin scored at the rim, then a three from Big Fil sent the teams to the media timeout with Xavier up 13-0.It continued from there for the Muskies. Xavier was up 15-1 before Mount St. Mary’s made their first bucket and 29-3 before they made their second. It came from all angles for the home team in the first half, with 15 of the first 16 buckets being assisted and 9 different players making a shot before the final media timeout of the first half.It wasn’t all sunshine and roses for Xavier. Their first half production was marred by turnovers, with 10 of them before the break. This sentence is written like there’s a second bad thing, but it’s hard to say exactly what it would be. Gabriel Pozzato went 0-2 from the line in X’s first trip there, so I guess that’s not optimal, but Chance Westry redeemed that with a 3-3 showing of his own to get the team to 60% by the half. Mostly it was exactly what you expect to see in the first half of a bit game from a Big East team.Xavier came out of the half like a team that believed they already had the game won, probably because they already had the game won. Having hit the half up 51-16, they let The Mount drop an 8-3 run to open things up. Ruben Dominguez stemmed the tide with a three, and Xavier went into the first media timeout clinging to a 57-24 lead.A 7-0 run out of the U16 righted the ship for Xavier, not that there was much doubt anyway. There are only so many ways to describe an absolute boat race, and I’m running out of them. X stayed active on defense, made the extra pass on offense, and kept the pace high. Only some poor ball security and another 0-2 trip from the line for Gabriel Pozzato brought down what was otherwise an exultant mood.It was all over but the crying from there, as though it hasn’t been before. A 7-0 run is usually a meaningful event in a college basketball game; it took one from Mount St. Mary’s to cut the deficit to 40 with just over 9 minutes to play. From there, it was hard for spectators and participants alike to stay focused as the only question to arise was whether or not Xavier would doub