Xavier Basketball: Musketeers survive St. John’s, but lose Edmond Sumner

Xavier basketball could be in trouble moving forward due to the uncertainty of Edmond Sumner’s knee injury.

We are approaching February and the No. 24 Xavier Musketeers have yet to earn an earth-shattering victory. Their best win of the season came against the Clemson Tigers (who are currently near the bottom of the ACC) on a neutral court back in November.

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In fact, in four of Xavier’s last six games, they have lost to a ranked opponent — Villanova, Butler, Creighton and Cincinnati.

So when the Musketeers traveled to New York City to take on the St. John’s Red Storm, Chris Mack’s team could ill afford to lose a game to a St. John’s team that was 10-12 coming into the match-up.

The Musketeers did indeed hold on to win 82-77, despite a late St. John’s rally, but they might’ve hurt their chances long term in 2016-17 as their star point guard and potential First Team All-Big East performer Edmond Sumner went down with a knee injury.

Sumner left the game in the middle of the second half after completing an And-1 layup. He was helped off the floor by his teammates, was checked on out the bench by the trainers and shortly after, was escorted to the locker room.

Chris Mack said postgame that “it didn’t look good” and that Sumner would get an MRI “tomorrow” (Monday). Meanwhile, Trevon Bluiett said that he and his teammates didn’t see Sumner following the game because he was with the trainers.

Sumner redshirted his entire first season at Xavier because of a painful knee injury, so it would be brutal to see a sophomore with so much potential deal with another significant injury.

Regardless, Xavier showed fight and grit without Sumner, but also let St. John’s back into the game following the incident.

“I thought the game flipped. You are never in complete control of the game, especially when you are on the road on your opponent’s home floor,” Xavier head coach Chris Mack said. “When Ed went down we were searching but it was a good response. We held our own on the glass which we didn’t do against Cincinnati. We turned the ball over way too much. We have to be better with the basketball down the stretch.”

Freshman point guard Quentin Goodin, who said following the game that he would be confident leading the team if Sumner was out an extended period of time, scored a career-high 16 points in 25 minutes. Goodin hit four of his five shots, hit seven of his nine free throws and even made a clutch shot with 2:08 remaining to put the Musketeers up eight points.

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Goodin may have played well against St. John’s, but it’s a whole different animal when March rolls around. While the freshman is a solid backup, Sumner is needed if Xavier is going to reach their true potential. We know Bluiett can score and J.P. Macura is a solid role player, however, Sumner, like Maurice Watson Jr. at Creighton, is the heart and soul of the roster. Things may not be looking up for Xavier, especially if bad news comes down today.