SPOKANE, Wash. – Zach Norvell Jr., Johnathan Williams and Rui Hachimura have quickly emerged as stars of this year’s NCAA Tournament. But there is another player who has remained consistent as can be for a while.
Junior point guard Josh Perkins stands out because he runs the offense like nobody else can. In two games, he is shooting 11-of-22 shooting with 26 points. He also has 10 dimes and four turnovers.
However, Perkins often finds himself in foul trouble. He has accrued nine along the way, which cannot happen in Thursday’s game against the smart Florida State Seminoles, who left Xavier in foul trouble.
Both Perkins and senior Silas Melson are two veteran players who probably do not get the love they deserve. After making it through Boise, the two are impressed with their team’s ability to overcome adversity.
"I think we just believe. We got that first game out of the way. We believe… and when adversity hit we still had the same composure and we knew we had to get stops and we believed and in March that's what matters,” Perkins said. “Having a swagger and believing in each other is what brings you to the top.”
“There's a lot of resilience and belief in this locker room. We all believe we can get the job done and we all believe we’re one of the better teams in the country and we’re just trying to show that,” Melson added. “We keep taking it one game at a time and the sky’s the limit.”
The sky certainly is the limit. Ken Pomeroy, the well-known analytical guru in the collegiate basketball world, crunched the probabilities after an insane first weekend of hoops. Right now, the Zags are ranked 3rd out of 16 to win the National Championship. The team has a 40 percent probability of making its way back to the Final Four, a 26 percent chance of dancing to the championship and an 11 percent chance to win it all.
It seems probabilities only mean so much in a tourney where a No. 1 seed lost to a No. 16 seed, and the top two teams in the west regional go down in the round of 32. But with Florida State coming up next with Michigan or Texas A&M waiting in the distance, you could figure the Zags are ready to prove last year’s championship run was not a fluke.