Xavier is entertaining big expectations as it opens the season against visiting Texas Southern on Monday in Cincinnati.

After a disappointing 16-18 campaign that included season-ending injuries to two starters before it ever began, the Musketeers enter this season on the brink of the Top 25 poll.

In forwards Zach Freemantle and Jerome Hunter, Xavier returns two starters from its 2023 NCAA Sweet 16 team. Freemantle, a grad student, sat out last season with multiple surgeries on his left foot. Hunter missed last season recovering from a heart attack and has been cleared for the 2024-25 campaign.

Freemantle has averaged 11.7 points and 6.4 rebounds in 105 career games with the Musketeers.

With seven players scoring in double figures, the Musketeers showed their potential in their only exhibition game of the preseason, a 98-74 blowout road win of Dayton on Oct. 20.

“We did learn a lot about our team. We had a lot of quality play in that game, certainly some things that we know that we have to clean up and get better,” Xavier coach Sean Miller said.

Texas Southern enters this season after a 16-17 mark in 2023-24 and a run to the SWAC title game. The Tigers are led by Grayson Carter and Kenny Hunter, both of whom were named to the 2024-25 Preseason All-SWAC Second Team.

The 6-foot-10 Carter averaged 7.1 points and 4.2 rebounds last season. Hunter led TSU with 38 blocks last year and led the team in rebounds with 4.5 per contest while shooting 52.8 percent from the field.

Texas Southern’s Johnny Jones received a three-year extension in April, keeping the coach under contract at the Houston-based school through the 2028-29 season.

“We feel as though we can continue recruiting at a certain level,” Jones said. “Our hope is to certainly get in the tournament and hopefully be that Florida Atlantic, at some point they can continue to push through the tournament and have those big games, and possibly get to the second round of the second weekend of the NCAA tournament, and hopefully further, but that’s our goal.”