Shortly after highly touted point guard Semaj Christon arrived at Xavier last fall, coach Chris Mack asked him to play a different role than what he envisioned when he committed the previous summer.

College Hoops Countdown, No. 7: Big East

• Point guard Semaj Christon aims to lead retooled Xavier back to prominence

• Big East capsule preview: Balance will be the hallmark of revamped league's debut season

High-scoring combo guard Mark Lyons had transferred to Arizona. Promising wing Dez Wells had been dismissed from school. Impact freshmen Myles Davis and Jalen Reynolds both had been declared academically ineligible. As a result, Xavier needed Christon to suppress his point guard instincts and hunt for his own shot more often to make up for the fact that the Musketeers returned nobody who averaged more than 4.4 points per game the previous season.

"The first couple practices, I was terrible," Christon said. "I didn't really get it. I just wasn't aggressive. I was looking to pass more than I was looking to score. When I was in prep school or in high school, I was strictly point guard, so I really wasn't used to having to take a lot of shots."

It took a few weeks of practice for Christon to embrace playing off ball more often and carrying the scoring load, but eventually he became more effective at it than even the most optimistic Xavier fans could have hoped. The 6-foot-3 guard averaged 15.2 points and 4.6 assists in a leg-deadening 34.3 minutes per game, emerging as a future NBA prospect and propelling a depleted, undermanned Musketeers team to a better-than-expected 17-win season.

Christon will still be Xavier's go-to scorer as a sophomore, but the Cincinnati native won't have shoulder such a heavy burden on his own because his supporting cast will be deeper and more talented. Point guard Dee Davis is fully healthy after wearing down late last season. Reynolds and Western Michigan transfer Matt Stainbrook are both now eligible and will anchor the frontcourt. And the addition of Davis and high-scoring true freshman Brandon Randolph will provide further perimeter scoring punch.

"Semaj's going to be able to show that he has the ability to score this year, but he's also going to be able to show that he has the ability to pass," Xavier assistant coach Travis Steele said. "We're going to put him in position to make plays whether it's isolation, pick and rolls or coming off screens, and he's going to either have to score the ball or, if he gets two guys on him, kick it. This year, he'll be able to do what the game tells him to do. He didn't always have that luxury last season."

Given Christon's explosive first step to the rim, ample size and length for his position and ability to finish at the rim, it's no surprise that Xavier would entrust him with a big role from the moment he arrived on campus. What's a bit more shocking, however, is that few schools viewed Christon as more than a marginal Division I prospect until the summer before his senior year at Cincinnati's Winton Woods High School.

Scrawny and well under six feet tall early in his high school career, Christon always had great speed but lacked the size or polish to become a full-time varsity player until his junior year at Winton Woods. Even then, he was purely a pass-first point guard, content to average 5.3 points per game in a complementary role to Auburn-bound senior Allen Payne, Louisville football signee Dominique Brown, and athletic wing forward Nate Mason.

"It takes a selfless kid to put the team first the way he did that season," Winton Woods coach Donnie Gillespie said. "We knew his junior year that he was special because we had three guys averaging 13 or more points, and it wasn't just because they were good, it was because he was making their life easy and spoon-feeding them. He probably could have done other things, but with that team he did his role and did it really well. He had no ego."

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