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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;NEW YORK CITY \u2014 Xavier head coach Chris Mack was visibly frustrated as he walked out of the locker room on Monday night, voicing his displeasure with some choice words at the way his team\u2019s 58-57 loss to St. John\u2019s came to an end.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Mack was angry at the sequence just before Myles Davis missed a potential game-winning shot, when Xavier\u2019s Remy Abell fell to the floor in a heap with a St. John\u2019s defender but didn\u2019t get a foul call.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It's hard to fault the coach for being upset. Not when his team was one shot away from winning a pivotal late-season game between two teams squarely on the NCAA tournament bubble, when his team was finally &lt;em&gt;this&amp;nbsp;&lt;/em&gt;close to winning a third consecutive game for the first time since December.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Instead, Xavier fell short, keeping alive its season-long search for consistency. Mack has said his team hasn\u2019t yet learned to handle success. Coming off a big week, in which Xavier won at hated intra-city rival Cincinnati and blew the doors off then-No. 19 Butler, that seemed to be the case again on Monday in what Mack told the team was a \u201Cmust-win game.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CI think we did handle success better, but not good enough,\u201D freshman guard Trevon Bluiett said. \u201CHandling success would mean coming out with the win, so I think we still got to do a better job of that.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Coming into the season, it appeared Xavier had the requisite talent to return to the tournament\u2019s second weekend for the first time since 2012. The program had its most touted recruiting class in years, led by Bluiett, who joined a returning core complete with a senior point guard in Dee Davis and a senior big man in Matt Stainbrook.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The offense has largely done its part, with Xavier entering Monday\u2019s game first in the Big East in scoring at 75.7 points per game (St. John\u2019s was third at 72.1). When XU is on its game, its ball movement is pristine and opponents can get overwhelmed, unable to combat the Musketeers\u2019 ability to hit jumpers, score in transition and get points inside on the backs of Stainbrook and Jalen Reynolds.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It\u2019s the other facets that have usually let Xavier down. At various times, the Musketeers have especially struggled with playing away from home and with their defense, leaving observers unsure what to expect in any given game. After Xavier fell to Big East bottom-feeder Creighton at home on Feb. 4, Mack said his team\u2019s recent home struggles were \u201C100 percent a leadership issue\u201D and that he \u201Cdidn\u2019t know who's going to take charge of our team being ready to play.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Musketeers, though, have turned the corner to an extent since that defeat, going 4-2, with the only losses coming at the hands of St. John\u2019s. Mack said as much Monday.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CI think our team has gotten better,\u201D the coach said. \u201CWe\u2019ve become a much better defensive team. We played a team tonight that\u2019s very difficult to guard for us \u2026 Our leadership\u2019s gotten better, but as an entire unit, and I put myself in that category, we just didn\u2019t get the job done.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u2022 &lt;strong&gt;DAVIS: Hoop Thoughts: Debunking Selection Sunday myths&lt;/strong&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And it\u2019s not entirely fair to point to Monday\u2019s game as evidence of same old Xavier, considering its competitiveness. An 11-0 Musketeer run to start the game gave way to a 22-15 deficit, with the Red Storm duo of Chris Obekpa and Sir\u2019Dominic Pointer proving to be terrors in the paint. They combined for six first-half blocks and were clearly in the heads of Xavier\u2019s rim attackers, leading to consistent transition opportunities and points for the Johnnies.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But Xavier battled back and had a chance to win at the end. As Bluiett said, nobody \u201Coutside the Xavier community\u201D thought XU could beat Cincinnati, beat Butler and then beat St. John\u2019s two days later on the road. Monday\u2019s loss hurts because Xavier was so close to a crucial win that would\u2019ve helped secure its spot in the field of 68.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;St. John\u2019s, on the other hand, can feel a lot better about its tournament chances, and it appears its players already do. At one point in the postgame press conference, guard D\u2019Angelo Harrison looked at the media wearing a relieved look and mouthed,&lt;em&gt; I\u2019m so happy, I\u2019m so happy&lt;/em&gt;. Beat Georgetown on Saturday, and the Red Storm can just about punch their ticket to the Big Dance.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Xavier has an opportunity for a signature win, too, when it takes on Villanova &amp;nbsp;the same day. After missing a chance to squash its consistency issues on Monday, you can expect a bounce-back effort against the Wildcats\u2014it\u2019d be par for the course for this up-and-down team.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CI don\u2019t really look into that,\u201D Bluiett said of Xavier\u2019s tournament chances. \u201CThat\u2019s coach\u2019s job, so from our standpoint, we\u2019re looking at it like we still got to win games to get there. We\u2019re not even in there yet.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the last week of February, the Musketeers are close to hitting their stride. It's uncertain if they\u2019ll do so in time for the end of the season, but they won\u2019t have to wait long to find out. March has a way of erasing such ambiguity.\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/college-basketball/2015/02/24/st-johns-defeat-xavier-inconsistencies-ncaa-tournament>