Tradition serves as Xavier’s X factor

PHOENIX

A quiz: Name the college basketball team from a small Jesuit university that plays in a mid-major conference and for the last decade had stood as the standard of excellence for all such programs.

An obvious answer: Gonzaga.

A less-popular and yet correct answer: Xavier.

“Basketball is the vehicle we have chosen to help advance the university,” athletic director Mike Bobinski said. “It’s one thing to spend a lot of money on something and not care. At Xavier, there is a sense that it truly matters whether we are successful or not. People care.”

Xavier is not the new Gonzaga. It’s the old one that never went away, having reached 18 NCAA Tournaments the last 26 seasons.

The Zags have been to one Elite Eight in school history. The Musketeers today will play in their second in five years, meeting UCLA in the NCAA Tournament West Regional final at US Airways Center. The winner earns a spot in next week’s Final Four in San Antonio.

There are different ways to construct a house, and the same goes for a successful basketball program.

UCLA probably would opt for a stock builder contract, where you can usually expect a finished product and decide which bids of interest to accept from your choice of McDonald’s All-Americans.

Xavier would take a more traditional owner-builder approach. Family and friends mean everything with this tactic. Hand them a hammer and put them to work. One day in 2000, you open the $45 million Cintas Center, a centerpiece of a small campus and a facility that rivals most in any league.

Crazy: For as much as Xavier’s size (4,000 undergrads) and conference (Atlantic 10) might hurt its perception among elite recruits, a smaller platform can also help develop and sustain tradition quicker than at larger schools.

While it might take a coach such as Lon Kruger two or three years at UNLV to cut through typical levels of university bureaucracy to begin forming the type of program he wants, things tend to move faster at a place such as Xavier.

There is more flexibility and fewer hurdles to clear when making decisions that most benefit your team. Things seem to flow easier. Routines are established. A mind-set is born and maintained.

Pete Gillen is followed as coach by Skip Prosser and he by Thad Matta and he by Sean Miller. Each understands the mission, and their message to recruits never changes: You’re judged by how you leave, not necessarily who you are when you arrive.

You recruit kids early and hard and work like crazy to hold off the bright lights and fancy reputations of teams such as UCLA and Kansas and North Carolina. Xavier did that with David West, who became national Player of the Year and an NBA All-Star. It did the same with James Posey, another first-round draft pick and NBA champion with the Miami Heat.

Sometimes, kids first test a bigger environment and ultimately prefer a more intimate setting where you can stroll into English class and exist among 15 or so students. Senior guard Drew Lavender is such a player and Xavier’s only McDonald’s All-American, having transferred from Oklahoma.

“It’s a matter of staying true to who we are and developing players,” said Miller, in his fourth season as coach. “We have a great product, and we know what butters our bread, so to speak. …

“The university has never been confused as to what it takes to be successful at the highest level, and its commitment is undying. Xavier is a very unique place, and I don’t know if there is two of us doing what we do.”

Gonzaga does. Between the schools, there have been 17 NCAA appearances, five Sweet 16s and the three Elite Eights since 1999. One program has managed to shape such achievement from the depths of the Pacific Northwest and the other from five miles outside downtown Cincinnati.

But neither has won the final game of a regional, the victory that makes you part of history. For UCLA, reaching another Final Four today would simply add to the unmatched greatness of its legacy. For Xavier, reaching it would change the course of its program forever, not to mention electrify a minute but loyal and passionate community beyond comprehension.

“The key for us will always be sustaining a level of success over time,” Bobinski said. “And while we know how hard it is going to be playing a load of a team in UCLA, our guys deserve to be here. We deserve to play this game.”

There are different ways to construct a Final Four team. Today, the small fish hopes to jump into college basketball’s largest pond.

Ed Graney’s column is published Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. He can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.