Xavier has to win tonight if they don’t want to leave themselves a great deal of heavy lifting in the Big East tournament. That lands this game squarely in the land of the colloquial “must win.” The Musketeers have a carefully cultivated reputation as a team that brings with it a certain degree of hardness. They are a program that steps up when the chips are down and does what needs done. That’s the rep, but excluding elimination games, how has it actually played out?
2016: No must wins to see here, just a season long trampling of the opposition that landed the Musketeers a two seed that they promptly squandered.