CINCINNATI — There were a few minutes, early in the Ball State's road contest against Xavier, when the Cardinals looked competitive.
That lasted about five minutes of game time, when Ball State led. The rest of the night belonged to Xavier (8-1), which handed Ball State (3-5) a 96-50 defeat. It was the Cardinals' second straight loss.
Against its toughest non-conference opponent of the season, Ball State went minutes at a time without a basket and were out of sorts on both ends of the court for most of the game. James Whitford's, a the former Xavier assistant and ninth-year Ball State head coach, suffered the biggest defeat of his tenure with the Cardinals in his return to the Cintas Center.