Tempo free numbers aren't as kind to Xavier as bracketologists are. That said, there's nothing wrong with hanging this high in any bracket.
We've pushed this feature from Wednesday to Thursday this week (I'm sure you all were in a dither yesterday afternoon) because Xavier played on Wednesday. It's a good thing we did, because the Muskies' win over Providence rocketed them from 17th to 16th on the s-curve. A one-position leap isn't superficially that significant, but it puts Xavier into what the NCAA refers to as the protected seeds.
Any team on the top four lines is - or is supposed to be - given geographic protection, meaning that Xavier wouldn't have to fly across the country to play Gonzaga in Spokane or head up to Brooklyn to take on Stony Brook.