It didn't look like the first game in the Travis Steele era at Xavier would be all that close, until it was.
"Well," Steele started his first-ever post-game press conference, "they say it's never easy. Every game's gonna be hard and that's what I told our guys in the locker room," following Xavier's 82-69 season-opening win Tuesday night over IUPUI in the Cintas Center.
The game started with Musketeer dominance but soon progressed into a back-and-forth game that had the more than 10,220 fans in attendance on the edge of their seats.
It took a second-half response that stared adversity right in its eyes to collect Xavier's 29th consecutive season-opening win and its 40th straight non-conference win at home.