Xavier remains one for all, all for one

The motto -- one for all and all for one -- is appropriate. But Xavier is much more than just three Musketeers.

The Cincinnati-based school has succeeded this season because of suffocating defense and offensive team work. Xavier has six players who average more than 9.9 points per game.

“We have seven different players who could score, and when they don’t score in the same way, that’s when you really can lend it to balance,’’ said Sean Miller, who is in his fourth season as Xavier’s coach.

“To me, the (other) part of it is really having a team that’s bought in to being unselfish, and clearly our team is unselfish.’’

The Musketeers are limiting opponents to 40 percent shooting and 62 points a game. Miller says his team is “defending at a high level.’’

Senior guard Stanley Burrell came to Xavier as a scorer and has developed into an all-around player. He led the team in scoring the last three seasons but has dedicated himself to becoming a lock-down defender.

Mighty Mite point guard Drew Lavender, who started his career at Oklahoma, has become the engine that drives the Musketeers. The 5-7 Lavender, who has been slowed by an ankle injury over the last month, averages 10.8 points and 4.4 assists per game.

Josh Duncan, a 6-9 senior forward, is the team’s leading scorer at 11.6 per game. He presents match up problems because he can score around the basket and also from behind the arc (42 percent on 3-pointers.

Xavier (pronounced Zay-v-yer) has become one of the most consistent basketball programs of the Big Six Conferences. Earlier this season, the school declined when a web site wanted to name it the “mid-major team of the week.’’

Xavier has won 20 or more games in 20 of the last 25 seasons and is participating in the NCAA Tournament for the 17th time since 1983. In 2004, the Musketeers lost to Duke in the Atlanta Regional final.

Last year, Xavier came within a free throw of upsetting top-seeded Ohio State in the second round. “For every recruit that’s looking at Xavier, they have to know right away we’re not a mid-major,” Burrell told the New York Times. “I know we’re not in a major conference, but we do everything the same way that an ACC school or a Big East school or a Big 12 school would do.

“We eat well. We travel well. We have great gear, a great coaching staff and a great medical staff. People put us in the mid-major category, and it’s like, what else do we have to do?”