Richard Pitino gets a third chance at a coaching milestone when Xavier hosts Old Dominion on Tuesday night in Cincinnati.The first-year Xavier head coach gets another opportunity at career win No. 250 after missing in his first two chances.Xavier (2-2) suffered blowout losses to Santa Clara on Nov. 10 and Iowa on Friday after starting the season with wins over Marist and Le Moyne. Old Dominion (2-2) was blown out on Saturday at George Washington, 96-73.When the Musketeers lost 81-62 at Iowa, they were outscored 50-26 in the paint and outrebounded by a 41-24 count. Yet Pitino saw a stronger effort from his team compared to the 87-68 manhandling at home by Santa Clara four days earlier.”What I saw was growth,” Pitino said. “I think we were all disappointed with our effort against Santa Clara. I didn’t think it was an effort problem (versus Iowa). We’re gonna learn from it. Iowa is always a hard place to play, but I thought the attitude and the will was there.”Tre Carroll leads Xavier with 13.8 points per game and has been the only Musketeer who scored in double figures in all four games.
