March 1, 2008

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CINCINNATI - Led by a career night from sophomore Jason Love and 15 points from C.J. Anderson, the No. 9/11 Atlantic 10 regular season champion Xavier University Musketeers staved off a strong second half effort from the George Washington Colonials to win the match-up 66-56 in front of a sell-out crowd at Cintas Center. Xavier improves to 25-4 (13-1 A-10) while GW falls to 9-15 (5-9 A-10).

C.J. Anderson led four XU players in double-figure, including Josh Duncan with 13, Jason Love with 12 and Stanley Burrell chipped in 11.

Jason Love registered his first career double-double with 12 points and a career-high 10 rebounds. His previous career high was 9 boards three times, most recently against Rhode Island (2-18-08).

Senior Drew Lavender was only able to give 16 minutes to the cause, still suffering from an ankle injury.  Fellow senior Stanley Burrell handled the majority of the point guard duties for the game, contributing 11 points with four assists and two steals in 37 minutes of play.

Xavier started the game with a 19-4 run in the game's first 7:52.  Josh Duncan paced the Musketeers with 5 points off the bench during the run.  Trailing 29-11 at the 6:59 mark the Colonials went on a 12-0 run to cut the XU lead to 29-23 at 2:40. 

Leading by just 56-55 with 3:04 to go, Xavier finished the game with a 10-1 run for the 66-56 final score, registering its 11^th straight win.  Jason Love scored 4 of the 10 points.

With tonight's win, XU established a new regular season mark for victories with 25. The previous record was 24 set in the 1987-88, 1989-90, and 2002-03 seasons. The record for most wins in an entire season belongs to the 1989-90 "Sweet 16" team (28-5).

Tonight's victory gave Xavier head coach Sean Miller 88 wins as a head coach at Xavier, tying him with Bob Staak (1979-85) for seventh all-time among Xavier coaches.

Josh Duncan scored 13 points tonight to bring his career total to 1,090.  He moved into 35^th place on the school's all-time scoring list passing Jim Boothe who scored 1,085 points (1954-57).

Xavier is now 19-0 this season when four or more players score in double figures.

Xavier, which ranked first in the Atlantic 10 in field goal percentage defense at 40.1 percent, held George Washington to 40.0 percent (20-for-50) from the field.

Xavier entered the game shooting 76.0 percent from the free throw line this season, which led the A-10 and was 11^th in all the NCAA. But the Musketeers were an uncharacteristic 16-for-29 (.552) from the line in tonight's game, which marked a season low XU. The previous low free throw shooting performance was 57.7 percent (15-for-26) against Southeast Missouri State (11-10-07).

Xavier travels to Philadelphia for their final A-10 road game of the season against Saint Joseph's on Thursday, March 6. Game time is set for 9 p.m. ET.  The game will be carried on ESPN.