Team:Xavier Musketeers
2025-26 Record:15-18, 6-14 Big East
2025-26 Big East Finish:Tied with Georgetown for 10th, which means last, but at least they won the tiebreaker by way of head-to-head record to be the #10 seed in the conference tournament.
Final 2025-26 Computer Rankings
NET:#96
KenPom.com:#94
BartTorvik.com:#94
Postseason:The Musketeers got a little boost at the end of the season by beating Marquette in the 7/10 game of the first round of the Big East tournament, but UConn crushed them, 93-68, in the quarterfinals to end their campaign.
Notable Departures:Almost everyone. Xavier had seven guys average at least 16 minutes per game last season. All but one of them appeared in every game, and the seventh guy appeared in 32 of 33 contests. Six of the seven are gone. They lose four of their top five scorers, all of whom averaged in double digits, led by Tre Carrollat 17.8 per game. They lose both guys who averaged more than four rebounds per game, with Filip Borovicanin's 7.4 per contest leading the way, and four of the five guys who cleared the 3.0 hurdle in that column. They lose all five guys who averaged two or more assists per game, and Borovicanin was the leader there as well at 4.2 per night.
Now, I should point out that the Ohio lawsuit regarding the NCAA's five years/five seasons rules that went into effect this summer did involve two outgoing Musketeers Filip Borovicanin and Malik Messina-Moore . That's still working its way through the courts, but we can say this safely: There are 16 people on the Xavier roster right now. The NCAA limit is 15, although there is some wiggle room for walk-ons who were on the roster before the NCAA switched from scholarship limits to roster limits. Even if this lawsuit eventually gets solved to allow those two guys to play another season, there is no space for them at Xavier. Also! This lawsuit is going to come back up in a minute! Sit tight!
Notable Returners:I said ALMOST everyone a moment ago, and the reason I can't say everyone relevant to last year's team isn't gone is just one guy: Jovan Milicevic. The 6'10", 241 pound forward from Toronto that transferred in from New Mexico a year ago is sticking it out in Cincinnati. He started in 31 of 33 appearances last season and averaged 12.4 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 1.4 assists in just over 26 minutes a night. He was also a notable three-point threat, draining just under 43% of his 4.7 attempts per game. His lone KenPom.com game MVP award for last season was Xavier's 89-87 win over Marquette in the Big East tournament, where he had 21 points on 7-for-11 shooting, three rebounds, two assists, and two blocks.
Key Additions:Xavier has four freshmen on the roster, only one of which is a top 150 prospect. That's Kalek House(6'3", 200 lb freshman guard, Scottsdale, Arizona), who comes in at #98 in the 247 Sports Composite. Given the near total turnover on the roster, it wouldn't be surprising to see a top 100 freshman get solid minutes at worst this winter. Gedeon Basson(6'1", 218 lb. freshman guard, Douala, Cameroon) isn't even a rated or ranked prospect according to 247, but he averaged a team high 18.0 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 2.7 assists per game for Cameroon in the 2025 FIBA U19 World Cup. Basson was at a prep school in Florida, so it's not like he's a total mystery to the recruiting scouts so it seems worth trusting them… but also he had 19/2/3 plus a steal and a block against a Team USA roster with AJ Dybantsa and Koa Peat amongst others in that event.
That sends us along to the seven transfers on this roster. Two of them have the unique circumstance of being former teammates, just not at the same school last season. Both Braden Appelhans(6'6", 200 lb. senior guard, Blue Springs, Missouri) and Tru Washington(6'4", 210 lb. senior guard, South Phoenix, Arizona) were both at New Mexico together in the 2024-25 season, and then departed after their coach left. The coach in question? Xavier head coach Richard Pitino, and no, I don't have a good explanation as to why these guys didn't follow him a year ago. Well, okay, maybe I understand it in Appelhans' case, as he didn't have much of a role in two seasons with the Lobos. He also lost his rotation gig late in the season at Drake last year, so we'll see if Pitino actually wants to find playing time for him now. Washington went from useful freshman to sophomore starter, and he had 12 points, six rebounds, two assists, three steals, and a block in New Mexico's NCAA tournament win over Marquette. He averaged 11.9 points and 4.0 rebounds for Miami (FL) as a starter last year.
Ruben Dominguez(6'6", 214 lb. senior guard, Puerto Real, Spain) and Mike Nwoko(6'10", 260 lb. senior forward, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) seem to be the most likely guys after Washington to be able to replicate their production from last season at their new home. Dominguez was given sophomore status for his first season at Texas A&M last year (but is listed as a senior by Xavier?) and won a starting spot five games into the season. He averaged 10.2 points and 2.3 rebounds while shooting 40% on 6.3 three-point attempts per game, but I guess Bucky-ball didn't really agree with him? Nwoko is on his fourth stop in four seasons, but he's been developing and growing as a player going from Miami (FL) to Mississippi State to LSU. He went for 13.4 points and 5.9 rebounds for the Tigers last year, and from what I can tell, it certainly seems like Will Wade could use a guy like him right now….. because Will Wade could use any players at all.
Nikos Chitikoudis(6'9", 235 lb. senior forward, Thessalonki, Greece) has averaged more than 24 minutes in all three of his college basketball seasons so far. It's just that the first two were at North Carolina A&T and the third was at Robert Morris. He went from 10.8 points and 9.3 rebounds in his last season in the CAA to 11.3 points and 7.7 rebounds in the Horizon League, which we can mostly say is pretty consistent work. He's more of a traditional big with just 13 three-point attempts in his career and 10 of them waaaay back in freshman year.
We round out the transfers with Rolyns Aligbe(6'9", 243 lb. junior forward, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota) and Chance Westry(6'6", 205 lb. senior guard, Harrisburg, Pennslyvania). Aligbe is the younger brother of former Seton Hall player Prince Aligbe, and he comes with the added bonus of a younger brother named Harrison joining the Musketeers as well. Harrison doesn't even have a 247 Sports page, which is why we haven't mentioned him in the discussion of freshmen, even if he is 6'8" and 220 pounds. As for Rolyns, he started off as a rotation guy at Southern Illinois and then was a starter alongside big brother Prince this past season. He put up 9.5 points and 7.4 rebounds in 2025-26, and he's a career 35.7% three-point shooter. Regular contributor in the Missouri Valley: Good. Guy with two years of just 115 minutes total at the high major level with an injury year in between the two? That's a bit harrowing, and that's why I'm a little bit trepidatious about Chance Westry. I get it, the 15.5 points, 3.8 rebounds, and American Conference best 5.5 assists per game is pretty tantalizing, especially since it was while UAB went 20-12. Our man Delgreco Wilson noted Westry's pathway through injuries that needed surgery at Auburn and Syracuse that prevented him from ever playing in either spot even though he was a top 40 prospect back in the day. If Wilson has Westry's back, that makes me feel better about the possibilities, but the injury history looms, y'know?
Coach:Richard Pitino, entering his second season as head coach at Xavier and 15th as a Division 1 head coach. He has a record of 262-204 as a Division 1 head coach including his time at New Mexico, Minnesota, and FIU.
Outlook:Part of Xavier's roster turnover from last season is the fact that Richard Pitino brought in four guys who were on their last year of eligibility. There was always going to be a little bit of noise here. However, Pitino also lost four guys that he brought in a year ago to the transfer portal, and he lost Roddie Anderson as well after he was the only non-walk-on to stick around after the coaching change…. and that was really just injury related more than anything else.
On one level, a certain amount of aftershocks after a coaching change is acceptable. It's just that the aftershocks in this case are all guys that Pitino recruited himself, and he got a pretty good jump on the transfer portal given the speed at which Xavier announced his hiring after Sean Miller left, so it's not like he was caught short and had to take whoever would listen to him. Now he's doing it all over again, resetting nearly the entire roster after a first year in Cincinnati that didn't really go the way anyone would have wanted it to go.
Xavier didn't live up to what the preseason computer rankings thought they would be, falling from #74 to #94 at BartTorvik.com and from #62 to #94 at KenPom.com. Even within the context of the season itself, Xavier never really got off the mat, starting off the NET rankings at #102, falling as far as #137 at one point, before using the strength of merely playing Big East teams to finish at #96. Part of the reason for all that? Xavier never figured out how to play defense together. Their Torvik chart for defensive efficiency is just a slide down as the season goes along, eventually landing at #186 in the country. They had the worst defense in the entire Big East during league play, giving up 117.4 points per 100 possessions. That's 1.17 per trip if you prefer it that way.
That's not what you want to see from a coach who just ran back-to-back top 25 defenses at New Mexico and was regularly pumping out top 60 defenses in his last five seasons as the Minnesota head coach.
And that brings us to this coming season, where the BartTorvik.com algorithm says that the X-Men are projected at #56 in the country. That's about where they were aimed a year ago and fell way short. What is going to happen to change the results with Richard Pitino once again assembling this roster on the fly back in the spring?
And that brings us around to something that Matt Norlander and Gary Parrish talked about back in early July on the CBS Sports Eye on College Basketball podcast. Because of that lawsuit in Ohio regarding fifth year eligibility for last year's seniors, Richard Pitino had to give an under oath deposition where he was asked — presumably by the plaintiffs, and smartly if that was the case — how much Xavier was spending on their roster for this upcoming season. The answer? $14 million .
Nothing wrong with spending that in revenue share money, not when the cap on that cash is north of $20 million. But I ask you this: Where is the money coming from, because Xavier is not making $14 million in television money off the Big East's contracts, and what will the source of said money think when Xavier misses the NCAA tournament again, which would be the third time in the last four years and the sixth time in the past eight tournaments…. or worse, posts a second straight losing season, something that hasn't happened to the Musketeers since 1982?
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