r top returning scorer and rebounder, Marc-Eddy Norelia, who is recovering from a broken left hand.Baylor still needed a late 9-0 run to put them away, which should put the Spartans on notice.We re

WACO, Texas -- For once, the beginning of basketball season brought with it a welcome change deep in the heart of Texas.While Baylors football program is stuck in a quagmire of scandal off the field and a five-game losing streak on the field, the Bears basketball team ascended from unranked to No. 9 in the Associated Press poll this week.Baylor already defeated then-fourth-ranked Oregon at home this went to the Battle 4 Atlantis to pull off an impressive string of victories over VCU, Michigan State and Louisville.All of that serves as context as No. 7 Xavier comes into the Ferrell Center on Saturday afternoon for a top-10 nonconference hoops matchup that will draw the eyes of the college basketball nation.Baylor (7-0) tips off at the same time as its football team kicks off on the road at West Virginia, but that coincidence wasnt even mentioned in Bears coach Scott Drews pregame press conference on Friday.Instead, Drew spoke about how fortunate his program is to have two top-10 nonconference opponents come into Baylors arena in the same season. Before this year, Baylor played only two top-10 nonconference opponents at home in its history.The chance of having two top-10 home games in nonconference, youve got a better chance of hitting the lottery, Drew said. Its a great opportunity for us to play at home against a real quality opponent. For both teams, your RPI is not going to go down if you lose and, if you win, its a great gain.Like Baylor, Xavier (7-0) is undefeated against a slate of quality opponents. Unlike Baylor, the Musketeers havent faced a team with a national ranking attached to it yet this season.Xavier defeated Missouri, Clemson and Northern Iowa twice during a stretch of four games last month.Now the Musketeers play their first game on an opponents home floor this season -- all seven of Xaviers previous contests were either at home in Cincinnati or at the Tire Pros Invitational in Orlando -- as well as their first ranked foe.Xavier coach Chris Mack knows his team will be fully focused on Baylor.Theres so much respect for the type of program that Baylors had for several years, Mack said. (Our players) saw what they did down in the Bahamas. Theres no trick, theres no science for getting our guys up for the game.With hype and motivation equal on both sides, the game could come down to whether or not Xavier can hit shots against Baylors treacherous zone defense. The Bears deploy 7-foot forward Jo Lual-Acuil and 6-10 forward Johnathan Motley in the interior. And Mack said everyone in the Bears 1-3-1 zone knows his responsibility to limit open looks.Were going to have to find soft spots in the zone and were going to have to make some shots, obviously, and then were going to have to try to rebound and get second opportunities, Mack said. Baylor makes it tough. Theyre big and they put that 7-footer under the rim. Its a challenge but we wouldnt have it any other way.The Musketeers will try to attack the zone and crash the boards with a quartet of tall guards and 6-10 center Sean OMara.Drew seemed to be just as concerned about stopping Xaviers lineup on the offensive end as Mack was about combatting the Baylor zone.We havent faced a team with as much height across the board, basically a team of four guards at 6-6, athletic, can shoot it, post it, drive it, Drew said. With that, it also makes it difficult to defend because, with a lot of shooters, you never know which one is going to be hot that day. Its easy to see why theyre such a good team.Jimmy Smith Jersey . But Bourque, who has missed three games with a lower-body injury, wont be in the lineup when the Habs travel to Buffalo to take on the Sabres on Wednesday. Cyrus Jones Jersey . NBA officials ruled the court unplayable in the Bucks final exhibition game on Oct. 25 because players were slipping, and the game was cancelled midway through the first period. http://www.cheapravensjerseysauthentic.com/?tag=authentic-brandon-williams-jersey . Meanwhile, there were huge victories for Sunderland and West Ham over fellow relegation rivals, leaving the battle to avoid the drop up for grabs with the bottom 11 teams separated by just six points. Eden Hazard and Fernando Torres scored second-half goals to seal a fourth straight victory for Chelsea, which climbed above Arsenal and Manchester City in the standings ahead of their games on Monday and Sunday respectively. Jonathan Ogden Jersey . Ibaka equaled a career high with 20 rebounds, adding four blocked shots and 15 points as the Thunder smothered the Milwaukee Bucks offence in a 92-79 victory Saturday night. R.J. Prince Jersey .com) - Christian Ponder will get another chance to prove himself for the Minnesota Vikings, with head coach Leslie Frazier announcing Wednesday that the struggling quarterback will start this weekends game against the Green Bay Packers.EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Miles Bridges provided a glimpse on Friday of what he can do when he gets rolling offensively. Michigan State coach Tom Izzo would like to see his team feed the ball to his freshman phenom more often.Bridges converted all but one of his 11 shots in the first half of a 100-53 victory over Mississippi Valley State. He scored only three points after halftime but finished the game with 24 points, 11 rebounds and six assists.Izzo wants to see the Spartans rely consistently on the talents of the 6-foot-7 Bridges, rather than take 28 3-point shots, as it did on Friday.They will get another chance on Sunday when the No. 13 Spartans host Florida Gulf Coast.I am not looking for that at all, Izzo said of the 3-point shots. Im really looking to get the ball to Miles inside a little more.Bridges bounced back from a six-point, nine-turnover performance against No. 2 Kentucky earlier in the week.He became more of a normal human being at the start of the second half, Izzo said. I like him abnormal, personally. And thats what I told him at the end. We just gotta keep that fire.But he was never lazy, maybe the competitiveness, the want to win games, is there. But the competitiveness, the want to score or rebound, make assists, be aggressive, I thought dropped off a little bit in the second half.Although Izzo wants to pound the ball inside, the Spartans top perimeter threats regained their strokes. Senior Eron Harris and sophomore Matt McQuaid drained five 3-pointers apiece against the Delta Devils.The Spartans (1-2) need to get in a groove with three upcoming games from Wednesday through Friday at the Battle 4 Atlantis tournamentt in the Bahamas.dddddddddddd.Were ready to go into the next game, Harris said. Were feeling good right now. We need to get back-to-back wins so we can go into the Bahamas feeling good.Everything happened for us (Friday), but we still can improve. We still need to play better defense, we need to rebound the ball, and we need to take care of the ball a little better, too.The Eagles (1-2) figure to offer more resistance to the Spartans than winless Mississippi Valley. They gave Baylor a tough battle on Friday, losing on the road 81-72.Florida Gulf Coast trailed by 10 at the half but was down only one with less than three minutes remaining.Baylor did a good job in the first half of throwing the ball inside and putting us on our heels, Eagles coach Joe Dooley said. A lot of those buckets that they got -- and the reason they shot such a high percentage -- was because we turned over too many live-ball situations.Guard Brandon Goodwin, who leads the club with a 20.0 average, had a team-high 22 points against the Bears and guard Zach Johnson (15.7 average per game) added 17.The Eagles have been playing without their top returning scorer and rebounder, Marc-Eddy Norelia, who is recovering from a broken left hand.Baylor still needed a late 9-0 run to put them away, which should put the Spartans on notice.We regrouped in the second half and had our defense a little bit more situated, Dooley said. We got into a better offensive flow. 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