A year ago, Xavier fans approached the upcoming season with an overwhelming sense of unfamiliarity. The coach was gone, all of the players were gone, there was not a single person on scholarship at the school who had played a single minute in a Xavier uniform when the ball tipped for the first time. This year Xavier has (at least) one such player and, perhaps more important than the fact that he gives fans a familiar face to root for, he’s really good.
After following Richard Pitino from New Mexico, Milicevic’s first forays as a Musketeers showed what a mercurial player he could be. He staggered out of the gate in three buy games, reaching his nadir for the season early with one point in 12 minutes against Santa Clara, but rebounded by leading Xavier with 15 at Iowa and putting up 40 in two games at the Charleston Classic. He had a fairly inefficient 12 in the Shootout, but bounced back with 17 against Missouri State to seemingly right the ship before Big East play began. The transition from non conference play to conference play last year was notably hard on Xavier, and no one personified that more than Milicevic. His first 5 outings produced a line of 4.4/4/1.4 on .250/.313/.333 shooting to go with 1.8 turnovers per game and 6.4 fouls per 40 minutes. His lone real highlight of that stretch came at Georgetown where his three pointer with 4:01 left put Xavier on top and produced the final lead change of what had been a back and forth contest.
The tide finally turned on January 10th when Providence came to town and Milicevic posted 22/8/1 on 8-12 from the floor and 4-5 from deep in just 26 minutes as he exorcised all but one of the trends that had haunted him early on. The one he didn’t kick, and never really did, was foul trouble. Milicevic fouled out that day and also in the next game. And the game after that one. And then the next one, too. And then three more times later in the season. From that point on, Milicevic was incredibly productive, scoring 14.4 points per game and posting a shooting line of .489/.455/.804, but his foul trouble continued to play a factor as he was limited in several contests, most notably the overtime loss to St. John’s where he fouled out in just 24 minutes of play.
There is reason for hope that we will be able to experience the highs Milicevic brought last season without the limitations that foul trouble produced. A year ago, Xavier was asking him to play the center position in slightly undersized frontline alongside Tre Carroll and Filip Borovicanin. This meant the slighter framed and more perimeter oriented Milicevic matched up with the likes of Tarris Reed, Zuby Ejiofor, and the rest of the paint monsters the Big East had to offer on a nightly basis. With the additions of big men Mike Nwoko, Rolyns Aligbe, and Nikos Chitikoudis from the transfer portal and 7 footer Kason Westphal and 6’11” Asher Elson embarking on their freshman seasons, there will be fewer times where Milicevic is asked to handle the opponent’s low post player. His offensive skillset should play well off of the more back to the basket oriented players as well, with his frame and shooting ability making him the type of matchup problem that prompted the Big East coaches to name him to the Preseason All-Big East Third Team. Milicevic has a chance to step to the fore and be the main threat for this season’s Xavier team, something he has done by leading the team with 29 points in the exhibition wins over Dayton and Tennessee, and Xavier fans have the chance to root on a player they saw excel the season before for the first time in a couple of seasons.