Here's how you sleep on a six-foot couch when you're 6-foot-4:

        You drag the armchair from across your office and angle it up against one end of the couch. You prop your feet up on the chair and unfold the rest of you until your head bumps the far end of the sofa. It helps if you have the shape and flexibility of a garment bag.

        Then you watch film until you fall asleep. Sweet dreams, Thad Matta.

        There are some things Thad Matta knows: How to speak to his first Xavier basketball team before its first game: “You've worked your tails off. You're ready to play.” How to define toughness on the court: “Staying in a defensive stance for 35 seconds.” How to avoid the early coronary: Adopt the Body For Life regimen, except do it seven days a week instead of the recommended three.

        How to get crazy on game night: “I like to shut the door, relax and watch some tape after the pre-game meal.”

        There are some things Matta does not know:

Thad Matta (AP photo) | ZOOM |

        How to get from his house in the northeast suburbs to anywhere but Cintas Center. “Cincinnati's a tough city to get around,” Matta decided. How to get former coach Skip Prosser's Ireland images off his office PC's screensaver. “I'm not real good with those machines,” Matta said. How to play more than 36 holes of golf since Xavier hired him in May, even though he lives on a golf course.

        And, of course, how to sleep comfortably on the couch in your office without morphing into Gumby. Matta was there a week in August, before his family moved to town and after he got tired of having Xavier pay for his room at the Vernon Manor.

        Matta's first game as XU's coach solved no mysteries, except that the man dresses better than Prosser did, and won't quote Joyce in the post-game. Xavier crushed Coastal Carolina, 72-41. The Chanticleers, bless 'em, are burdened with a bad nickname and just 33 wins in the last four years. Their best player was out with a bad foot.

        After the first few minutes, the only issue was if David West could outscore the entire Chanticleers roster. West led 17-16 at half. Coastal Carolina hung tough, but couldn't overcome West's dazzling array of dunks and spin moves.

        The pesky Chanticleers battled back in the second half, finally beating West, 41-25.

        As for the rest of the Muskies, they stayed interested. Matta ran out a conga-line of players. A few, such as Alvin Brown and Keith Jackson, came off the bench and got acrobatic. Brown had seven points in eight minutes in the first half; Jackson, the former Purcell Marian star, finished with eight in 22.

        What any of it means against this competition is anybody's guess.

        In games like this, the good teams find themselves playing against their own expectations. Matta wanted “energy and intensity.” According to West, he got it:

        “Maybe last year, we let this team back into the game. We didn't let up.”

        Saturday night was a stretching session for Xavier's brutal pre- Christmas schedule: At San Francisco, Purdue and Creighton, at Indianapolis against Missouri, home with Wisconsin, Cincinnati and Kent State. “We can be playing great basketball and be 5-and-5,” Matta said.

        Matta also lives no more than a mile from Bob Huggins, which could be interesting.

        Contact Paul Daugherty at 768-8454; fax: 768-8550; e-mail: pdaugherty@enquirer.com. Cincinnati.Com keyword: Daugherty.

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