It didn't look like the first game in the Travis Steele era at Xavier would be all that close, until it was.
What started as a dominant Xavier performance quickly turned into a back-and-forth nail-biter that Xavier eventually finished off with a powerful second-half effort to get by IUPUI, 82-69, Tuesday night at the Cintas Center in the Musketeers' 29th consecutive season-opening win.
Ryan Welage saved the day for Xavier with a herculean showing in the second half. Welage got hotter than rocket fuel in the second half, scoring 21 of his game-high 24 points after intermission.