The last First Four game of this NCAA Tournament was the best of the four, as Texas and Xavier basketball went back and forth all the way down to the wire for the right to advance to the Round of 64. The Longhorns led for most of the game, but Xavier came back in the second half and hit some big shots in the final minutes to walk out of Dayton with an 86-80 win that could have serious ramifications for Texas.
It was a gritty effort for Xavier, which trailed by double-digits late in the game before it was finally able to buckle down and get a few stops. Star big man Zach Freemantle hit the go-ahead shot and Texas was unable to match it, allowing the Musketeers to pull away with the win.
After the game, head coach Sean Miller couldn’t contain his pride for his group in his postgame interview with Jon Rothstein.
“This may be one of the best [games] I’ve ever been a part of.”
–@XavierMBB head coach Sean Miller pic.twitter.com/lW0ARppdhU
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) March 20, 2025
“This may be one of the best that I’ve been apart of, just in terms of the game,” Miller said of the Xavier win. “I thought we were dead in the water two times. But I’ll tell you, that’s the one thing about our team. The resiliency of the group has always won out for us. Just when you thought we aren’t gonna make the tournament, we kept winning. Even in this game, just when you’re like ‘it’s not gonna work out,’ we have a funny way of staying with it.”
Freemantle battled some foul trouble in this game, but he still finished with 15 points in 28 minutes for Xavier. Miller’s club was buoyed by a spectacular shooting display from Marcus Foster, who led the team with 22 points on a red-hot 8-for-9 shooting. Foster also knocked down 4-of-5 3-pointers and grabbed eight rebounds in the win.
This Xavier basketball team has a quick turnaround now, as they will head to Milwaukee on Friday night to take on No. 6-seed Illinois in the Midwest Region. That will be a tough battle, but Miller and company should come into the contest with a ton of confidence and momentum coming off of this comeback win.
The post Xavier HC Sean Miller’s heartfelt admission after stunning comeback vs. Texas appeared first on ClutchPoints.
