It’s a brave new world

The Xavier Musketeers had their first practice yesterday. I have been a Xavier fan since the first time I could comprehend what was happening on the television. Yesterday was a different step down that road. For the first time I felt like the construction workers in Major League: “who are these guys?”

We’ll get to know and love them in time of course. Once the season gets started, truthfully, once the high school soccer season winds down, it’s going to be a full time basketball until Santa has long since drifted away back to his break.

Of course there is Roddie Anderson. The last man standing. He is the final link to the last Xavier team. He didn’t play last year. Xavier returns five minutes from last year, actually. Michael Wolf, Henry Thole, and Ian Sabourin bring those minutes back. If they have a major on court impact on the team this year, something will have gone terribly wrong.

We’ll get to know All Wright, Anthony Robinson, Papa N’Diaye, and Kason Westphal. At some point Isaiah Walker will make a play that will endear him to Xavier Nation. Maybe Gabriel Pozzato is the next JP Macura level trash talker and crowd favorite. There is a decent team somewhere in all those names, and a good coach that is trying to piece it all together.

That doesn’t mean that this isn’t just a little weird. This isn’t a get off my lawn screed. Players should be able to chase opportunity and get money when they can. Coaches always have, normal students always have, why shouldn’t basketball players? But there is a sense of a bit of loss. Two decades ago a generation of fans would have gotten to watch Dailyn Swain continue to grow into being an incredible player or watched Trey Green try to become the next Lionel Chalmers. Now, those guys are playing their trade elsewhere.

Roster churn is part of the present. Hopefully, something comes down the line to slow it some in the future. Until then, we get to know a new team. I very much want most of these guys to become part of the furniture here at X until their eligibility runs out. Until then, it’s a matter of flipping through pictures on Twitter and trying to figure out exactly who are these guys.

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