By DUSTIN DOW
The Cincinnati Enquirer

B Y   T H E   N U M B E R S

12 -Seasons since Xavier has been to its only Sweet 16. 70 - Rebounds David West needs to reach 1,000. 17 - Shoe size of the 6-8 Angelo Smith and the 6-9 West, who have the largest feet on the team. 2,427 - Miles Xavier will have to travel to California if the Musketeers and Stanford both win first-round Preseason NIT games. 18.3 - West's scoring average last season. 18.3 - Romain Sato's scoring average in Atlantic 10 games last season.

Nestled into 100 acres of land at the intersection of Victory Parkway and Dana Avenue in North Avondale, Xavier University is home to 6,573 students who quietly go about day-to-day life.

Despite the university's diminutive size and student population, the setting is just right for the men's basketball team to make a major impact on the college basketball scene, one that would thrust Xavier into a group of nationally recognized universities and create a potential financial windfall for the small Jesuit college. The question isn't so much whether the Musketeers, led by preseason All-American David West, can live up to the expectations, but rather what fruits this pivotal season will yield. How great is the reward for success? How detrimental are the repercussions of failure?

"It's huge," Xavier athletic marketing director Greg Amodio said. "Not just for athletics, but for the university. You've got this image that Xavier basketball provides, and you will be able to walk with a Xavier sweatshirt in Idaho, and they will know what Xavier is.

"The key will be to advance deep into the tournament. Could there be an opportunity for increased donor money? Absolutely. Increased corporate partnership dollars? Absolutely. More games on ESPN? That could be a case too."

The Xavier fan in Idaho with an "X" on his sweatshirt might never have heard of Schmidt Fieldhouse or know the significance of names such as Staak, Gillen and Prosser. But what matters is he bought the sweatshirt and became a Musketeers fan - after he watched David West lead Xavier past top-seeded Arizona into the Final Four.

The Xavier fan in Idaho has never been to and never will visit Ohio, nor will his three buddies watching the game with him at the local pub. But they don't need to, because all they are looking for is a "Cinderella" team with enough talent - and maybe enough luck - to make college basketball history.

Witness Gonzaga, a 5,300-student, Catholic university in Spokane, Wash., that has posted seven NCAA Tournament wins since 1999. That's the same number of games Xavier has won since the school's first NCAA Tournament victory in 1987. Gonzaga's wins, and corresponding tournament runs to the Elite Eight and Sweet 16, have created a national buzz and a national fan base that loves to cheer on the underdog.

From 1999 to 2001, Gonzaga was one of three schools, along with Duke and Michigan State, to advance at least as far as the Sweet 16 in each of the three years. The Bulldogs practically have become an automatic pick to get past the second round on brackets across the nation.

The school has parlayed its success into a 6,000-seat arena set to open for the 2004-05 season, a multinetwork TV deal that guarantees at least 24 of the Zags' 28 games will be televised, and an invaluable reputation as a proven winner.

"Now when you go out to recruit, you don't have to explain who or where Gonzaga is," Gonzaga athletic director Mike Roth said. "The recruits already know, and they want to come here."

But the biggest gains came from the checkbooks of fans and alumni in the form of a 400 percent increase in annual fund-raising since 1999 and the second-largest endowment in school history, a $1 million gift. Without that, Gonzaga's new arena wouldn't be even an idea today.

"It's amazing what can happen when you get that kind of exposure," Roth said. "Our product sale of T-shirts and hats nationally has gone off the scales. You can only attribute that to the men's basketball success."

All of which adds to the preseason excitement surrounding Xavier. And for good reason.

"This year we expect to be good, like we expected to be good last year, like we expected to be good the year before that," Xavier athletic director Mike Bobinski said. "There may be a few more opportunities to do more things this year. Certainly there's an opportunity to get to a good place."

That place being the Elite Eight or the Final Four - neither of which Xavier has achieved, coming closest with a Sweet 16 berth in 1990. The players and coaches are in place now for the most successful season in Xavier history.

The Musketeers boast:

Four returning starters from a 26-6 team;

A preseason All-American and national player of the year candidate in West;

A preseason All-American candidate in shooting guard Romain Sato;

A bench that goes nine to 10 players deep;

The 2001-02 Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year, Thad Matta;

The most challenging schedule in school history;

The programs most televised games, 23, with a potential for 27;

National preseason rankings of 10th in the Associated Press poll and 11th in the USA Today/ESPN coaches poll.

On paper it looks like a can't-miss season.

"That in itself will tell you that we expect to have a chance to be good," Bobinski said. "But you still have to play the games and hope that you don't have unforeseen problems or circumstances along the way."

Tell that to St.Joseph's, XU's Atlantic 10 Conference counterpart that entered last season ranked No.10 in both polls and saw a 19-12 regular season and subsequent NIT trip alienate disappointed fans - and media.

"In the immediate short run, it's kind of a downer," St.Joseph's athletic director Don DiJulia said. "It will take people a while to get over it. We'll see shortly if it's out of our system.

"You're ranked in the top eight, top 12 to start the season, and people can do the math. They figure you should win at least two games in the NCAA Tournament. Well, unless you go unbeaten, you can only go backward. All the regulars (fans) came back this season. The ones on the fringe who got excited before last year, they're the ones who didn't come back."

But St.Joseph's still sells out 3,200-seat Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse, although DiJulia admits the frenzied excitement that existed before last season is gone.

Xavier's fans are among the most active in the Atlantic 10. They regularly fill the 10,250-seat Cintas Center and sold out 13 of 14 games there last season and 13 of 15 so far this season. The season-ticket renewal rate at Cintas Center, which opened in November of 2000, is 90 percent.

They are coming - and have been for years - to see Xavier win. With expectations so high this season, an early-round exit in the NCAA Tournament - or worse, not even making the tournament - isn't likely to go over well with XU fans.

"People are going to be disappointed when you don't have that success," Amodio said. "Everybody's upset when you don't meet expectations. But it's not like we haven't been here before. We were No.10 (prior to 1997) and didn't make a deep run in the tournament, but those (fans) came back. When you've got that continued ascension of success like we've had, it safeguards you from a bad year."

Is one year enough?

Even if Xavier meets or exceeds expectations this season, will that one glorious run satisfy the program's financial and tradition needs?

The answer is yes.

And no.

Yes, one year, or sometimes even two years, in the NCAA Tournament spotlight can open up for a program opportunities that didn't previously exist.

At Kent State, where last season's team went to the school's and the Mid-American Conference's first Elite Eight, plans are in progress to renovate the on-campus arena.

Following its first Elite Eight appearance in 2000, Iowa State experienced a 200 percent increase in its season-ticket base. But that leveled off after a first-round loss to Hampton in 2001.

At Rhode Island, sales of merchandise that featured the Rams logo increased 25 percent following an Elite Eight run in 1998, athletic director Ron Petro said. Ground was broken in 2000 for a new basketball arena, the $54 million, 7,571-seat Ryan Center, which opened in June after more than 1,000 donors contributed to the project.

But four years after that run, Rhode Island finished 8-20 with its third straight losing season.

The Rams sold out just one game last season, when 3,885 showed up for the final game at Keaney Gym. On two occasions, fewer than 2,000 fans came out.

"We've really dropped off in the last couple of years," Petro said. "Hopefully the new building will help."

Another A-10 team, Massachusetts achieved unprecedented success in the mid-90s, reaching the Elite Eight in 1995 and the Final Four 1996, only to see how quickly those achievements are forgotten if the team cannot maintain a level of competitiveness.

"Our challenge now is to re-establish that," UMass athletic director Ian McCaw said. "Clearly, we've had a decline in our season-ticket and donor fund-raising base."

The best way to ensure program growth is to win on a consistent basis, as schools such as Gonzaga and Tulsa - and Xavier - have done.

"Last year we actually brought in more money than the year after we went to the Elite Eight," Gonzaga development director Mike Hogan said. "The first year, people were a little skeptical and thought we might be a flash in the pan. But after you keep winning, then they start giving."

So much so that Gonzaga's annual fund has reached the $1-million level, all the way from pre-1999 goals of $345,000 a year.

Tulsa has made the NCAA Tournament seven of the last nine seasons and advanced to the Elite Eight in 2000. Since then, the school has secured a three-year TV deal with Fox Sports Southwest and has seen enrollment rise, athletic director Judy MacLeod said.

But she said another run to the Sweet 16 or further could help to sell out the 8,335-seat Reynolds Arena, which Tulsa did in seven of 16 home games last season. And it could help to improve Tulsa's non-conference schedule, a weak point in the past, which this year includes two teams in the Associated Press Top 25, No.2 Kansas at home and No.22 Gonzaga on the road.

"One year is never enough," MacLeod said.

Although it has never experienced a bandwagon-fan tournament run past the Sweet 16, Xavier knows what it's like to play in the NCAA Tournament. The Musketeers have been there 14 times, including 13 trips in the past 20 years.

So if Xavier does advance to the Final Four this season, it won't have quite the same effect as UMass' rise from nowhere in the mid-90s, or even Gonzaga's streak in the past four years.

"We just didn't get good yesterday," Bobinski said. "We've been good for a long time."

That doesn't mean Xavier is satisfied with the first- or second-round exits it has had in its last seven appearances.

"We've got pretty much the same guys that I came in with, and we're trying to go further," senior swingman Dave Young said. "We've been in the NCAAs since I got here. Honestly, yeah, I think we can go further. We've got the team. We've got the experience."

How far can it take them?

"I don't see any reason the Final Four can't be a destination," Bobinski said. "Look at the teams that are considered in everybody's mind: Kansas, Arizona, Duke, North Carolina. Is that an important place to be? You're darn right it is. Is that our goal to be there? Sure it is. You've got to have the kind of year that you're capable of having.

"Can it happen here? Yeah, it can happen here. Will this be the year? I hope so. But if not, it's going to happen. I'm convinced it's going to happen."

E-mail ddow@enquirer.com

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