Friday, January 07, 2000Butler keeps coming up big
XAVIER NOTEBOOK
BY MICHAEL PERRY
The Cincinnati EnquirerReggie Butler continues to play the best basketball of his Xavier career.
The 6-foot-10 junior tied his career-high with 10 points on 3-of-3 shooting and grabbed a career-best seven rebounds in Xavier's 86-67 victory over Virginia Tech on Thursday night.
That gives the reserve center 26 points and 16 rebounds over the last four games.
“He's getting better and better and better,” coach Skip Prosser said. “He didn't play as well at Marquette as he had been playing, but none of us did. Tonight he was a force inside.”
Putting on a show
Freshman David West admits he had a little extra motivation in scoring his career-high 22 points.Virginia Tech assistant coach Mark Cline recruited West when Cline was an assistant at Old Dominion. West played against Virginia Tech's Dennis Mims in high school in North Carolina.
“I was jacked up playing against some guys I knew,” West said. “I just felt good today because (Cline) was sitting there watching me and he was winking at me and stuff. We were real close. He's a great guy.”
Fast starter
Darnell Williams hit two 3-pointers in the first three minutes against the Hokies, helping XU to a 10-2 lead. That seemed to get the crowd and his teammates going.“Our team has to play with a lot of emotion to win,” sophomore Lloyd Price said. “We're not the type of team that can just come out and win because we're there. We have to feed off each other and I think when Darnell hit those shots, that gave us a big boost and that helped us out in the first half.”
Williams finished with 11 points and moved into 16th place on the XU all-time scoring list with 1,300 points. He passed Derek Strong (1,291) and Jack Thobe (1,296).
Notable numbers
Xavier started the A-10 season with the best winning percentage in league games over the past three seasons, including tournament games. The Musketeers were 40-14 (.741) — 36-12 during the regular season and 4-2 in the Atlantic 10 tournament. ... XU is 18-18 under Prosser in games decided by five points or less, including 3-1 this season. ... Price already has 10 3-point field goals this season (in 34 attempts). He was 10-of-46 all last season.
Up next
Xavier plays at Rhode Island at 2 p.m. Sunday. The Rams are 3-10 and have lost eight in a row, including Wednesday night at Temple (88-45).
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