The other semifinal in the Western Conference was played almost at the same time, and Xavier University was the No. 3 seed in the division, beating West Virginia University 79-75 to meet UCLA in the Western Conference Finals. This game www.biquge.info determine who will make it to the final four of the NCAA and compete for the NCAA championship this season, and it is an extremely important game for any team that has come this far. Not to mention whether you can beat the champions of several other divisions, if you lose, you will not even be eligible to play against the top teams.

The Xavier University Musketeers are not a true powerhouse in the history of the NCAA, and although they have been regular season champions or even league champions in their league many times, they have only reached 19 NCAA tournaments in 96 seasons, without a championship or even a Final Four finals. Xavier University has sent a total of 16 NBA players to the NBA, the most famous of which are David West and James Posey, and it is fair to say that there are no superstars in the history of their teams. This year's situation is not far off, with no player in the starting line-up to be in the eyes of media pundits, but even so, they made it all the way to the Western Conference Finals, and their own strength should not be underestimated. Judging by their stats, it's likely to be another team-first team.

Holland sat in his room, frowning as he looked at the information at hand. Unlike the players, who prefer to look at basic stats, managers pay more attention to more detailed or high-level stats, and the most eye-catching of Xavier's team stats is probably their SRS. What is SRS? To put it simply, Xavier University's SRS of 17.17 points ranks 14th in the NCAA, which is not as good as UCLA's own 21.71 points, but it is also a very good point difference.

What really made him feel a little tricky was that four of Xavier's five starters averaged more than 10 points per game, and even UCLA only had three people: Westbrook, Ye Feng and Love. The team's leading scorer is their center Josh Dern, who averages 12.4 points and 4.7 rebounds per game, followed by their power forward Derrick Brown with 10.9 points and 6.5 rebounds per game, who is also the team's rebounding leader. Their two guards, CJ Anderson and Drew Lavande, contributed 10.7 and 10.8 points, respectively, plus a small forward who averaged 9.9 points per game, BJ Raymond, to make up Xavier's starting five. Judging from the overall scoring of the starters alone, Xavier University can almost go toe-to-toe with UCLA, even if they don't have a top offensive player like Ye Feng who scores like a melon and a vegetable cut.

"It's not easy to do! I'm most annoyed by this kind of team that is particularly strong in its integrity and has no obvious weaknesses......" Holland muttered to himself as he rubbed his temples. He also understands that basketball is a team sport, but no coach would like to meet an opponent who is very holistic, because it means that he needs to spend more effort on specific tactics, which greatly increases the difficulty and workload of preparation. But what can be done? If you choose the path of the head coach of the team, you must focus most of your energy on studying the opponent and thinking about countermeasures, and any lazy manager will only be drowned in the long river of history. As long as there is a little bit of achievement, the head coach is a veritable workaholic.

Holland believes in the team spirit of his players, Ye Feng and Loew themselves are very willing to pass the ball, Westbrook's often hot-headed stinky boy is actually a guy who is willing to share the ball with his teammates, but if his teammates are not strong, it is hard to say whether he is willing to pass the ball. But at the end of the day, UCLA is still a star-studded team, and it's impossible for any head coach to ignore the three of them in this position, even if they're willing to give up their chances to their teammates. The best example is the 2003-04 NBA Finals, where the Lakers, who had Kobe, O'Neal, Malone and Payton, unexpectedly lost to the Pistons' grassroots army, which also became the biggest stain on the star ball.

However, Holland knew that the Lakers' failure was not all the fault of the star ball, and the team's injuries and off-court infighting also affected the team's combat strength to a certain extent. For UCLA, neither of these issues exists, and the current fitness of the players is quite good, and even the top five starters who have played the most minutes per game have no major injuries that affect their appearance. As for the infighting, Holland has to be thankful that his players have very good personalities, and there are no thorns in the team that give him a headache. What's more, the team's troika Westbrook, Ye Feng and Loew have a very close personal relationship, and the three of them communicate very frequently off the court, as long as the three of them are stable, then the team will immediately be stable.

This time, Holland is convinced that UCLA will not repeat the mistakes of the Lakers, but how to deal with Xavier? No matter how you say it, this has reached the division finals, which is equivalent to the NCAA's "elite quarterfinals", and it is not easy to get to this point, maybe the other party has prepared some killer features in order to reach the final four. Holland doesn't know anything about this, the only thing he can do is to develop tactics according to the opponent's style of play, and then let the players do their job, as for the outcome of the game, it depends on the on-the-spot battle with the opposing coach in those 40 minutes!

Holland knows he can't let his players play pure team basketball, and the team's shot is still concentrated on the troika, even if they ignore the opposing defense, Shipp and Bamot can't share too much of the scoring burden. Although the basketball game is known as "offense wins the box office, defense wins the championship", in the end, it is still necessary to score more points than the opponent. When it comes to scoring, Holland may still be afraid of strong teams like North Carolina and Kansas, but Xavier, to be honest, he is just afraid that the opponent will get too many empty seats through cooperation, and he is full of confidence when it comes to scoring.

Rao is still in training, he still admonishes his players to pay more attention to the transfer of the ball, but if the position of his teammates is not very good, do not force the pass. He is the most worried about Westbrook, because this guy often kills up, and his hot-headed head will completely ignore the number of defenders in front of him, and force him to hold the ball 1 to N, and in the end there are only two results: either he is directly stealed, or the opponent gets the rebound and counterattacks. In response, Holland clearly admonished him: "Russell, if you can't stay calm on the court, I will force you to give possession to Ye, so that you don't take the team directly to the pit." Westbrook stuck out his tongue and grimaced at Ye Feng.

The reason why Holland dared to say this in public was also because Westbrook himself was an optimist, although he had a strong desire to win, but as long as someone could do the job that originally belonged to him, he didn't mind letting himself play a little easier, of course, if he couldn't win the game, he would still take back his own power, even if it was contrary to the coach's arrangement. And Westbrook didn't say it, he still admired Ye Feng in his heart, so he didn't have any resistance to the coach's words this time.

Ye Feng, who was forcibly lying down and was shot, looked a little helpless, and he preferred to hide behind and play soy sauce. But the coach's words have been left here, and he can only obediently agree. However, Ye Feng is still looking forward to controlling the game, although he has always been used as a pure scorer, and even if the skill of organizing the attack has long been put in the arsenal, he has not used it much. But this does not mean that he will feel rusty, after training from childhood to adulthood, many things are deeply engraved in his bones, and it only takes a few rounds to get back the original memory.

Freshmen like Ye Feng, Loew and Enrique may not feel much about this game, but for veterans who have played for the team for at least one season, Xavier University is an opponent that must be beaten. Last season, UCLA, as the No. 2 seed in the West Conference, also reached the division finals after knocking out Weber State, Indiana University and the University of Pittsburgh, and defeated the top seed University of Kansas 68-55 to reach the final four. This season, the strength of the team has been steadily improving, and they can't accept that the team can't make it to the last four. So maybe the goal of Ye Feng and others is just to win, but Westbrook's goal is to surpass themselves last year, at least the same as last year, what is the matter if they are eliminated in the division finals?

This is one of the important reasons why Westbrook promised to transfer control of the ball to Ye Feng when he couldn't control his emotions, he didn't want to try to fall in front of the finals again, and in order to reach the finals, he must first become the division champion, for which he can pay any price, as long as it can give him a chance to compete for the championship. Ye Feng also knew his friend's feelings, otherwise, a person like him who was afraid of trouble would not have directly acquiesced to the coach's emergency arrangement without fighting at all. For him, it's not just about following his basketball philosophy, it's about helping his seniors achieve their dreams and strive for the highest title!

Xavier University? Let the horses come! We're not going to give up the Western Conference title.