Xavier knows it can win without point guard Lionel Chalmers. Dayton knows it can win with center Sean Finn having his right hand all but tied behind his back.

Now that Chalmers is back and Finn is healthy, how good can Xavier and Dayton be?

Nobody knows, but that's a good thing. And so is this: Dayton visits Xavier on Saturday in what should be a fabulous game, even if it won't get the attention of other rivalry games this week.

	David West (18.8 ppg, 12.1 rpg) helped keep X winning as Lionel Chalmers was healing

There's no reason Xavier-Dayton can't become known as a great rivalry, especially if they keep playing basketball like this. The Musketeers are 16-4 and bearing down on their seventh consecutive 20-win season. The Flyers are 15-3 and approaching their fifth 20-win season in six years. The schools are located less than an hour apart. They share the A-10's West division.

What's not to like?

"We expect their best shot," says Dayton coach Oliver Purnell.

Thing is, nobody knows how good Xavier's best might be. The Musketeers lost their first two games without Chalmers, who suffered a broken right foot Dec. 31 against Creighton, but have won seven in a row since then. That included a 66-52 payback Saturday at Richmond, which had exploited the absence of Chalmers in a 67-59 victory three weeks earlier in Cincinnati.

Without the 6-foot Chalmers, who complements star forwards David West and Romain Sato by averaging 11.7 points and 4.5 assists, 6-foot-5 sophomore reserve Keith Jackson became a starter. Jackson earned the job off the bench against Creighton after Chalmers went down, scoring 17 points on 7-for-7 shooting.

"The game of his life," says West, a national player of the year candidate averaging 19.1 points and 12.1 rebounds.

Without Chalmers dominating the ball in the early offense, Dedrick Finn, a 6-1 freshman, continued to develop into a surprisingly effective first-year starter. Finn averages 7.4 points and 3.9 assists, and is hitting 46.9 percent of his 3-pointers -- second in the A-10. In 40 minutes of an 86-73 victory against Massachusetts, Finn needed just five field-goal attempts to score 21 points; he made all five shots, including four three-pointers, and added seven free throws.

"I think (Chalmers' absence) enabled some other guys to play some valuable minutes for us and be thrust into a (bigger) role," says Xavier coach Thad Matta. "You don't ever want injuries, but I thought we did a pretty good job without Lionel. I hope we get him back and playing the way he's capable of playing."

That's the only question at this point, and Chalmers gave a pretty good answer Tuesday at George Washington, scoring 17 points in 20 minutes to spark Xavier's 80-68 victory. That came three days after his first game back from surgery, when Chalmers played 11 minutes against Richmond. On his first touch he dribbled his way into a turnover.

"I asked him afterward if he was going to dribble back to Cincinnati, because he just kept going," Matta said. "He settled down. We knew he'd be a little shaky. He was that way in practice leading into the game. I believe the more he plays, the more confidence he'll get ... but it's now a little of a mental thing with him. He just stepped and broke his foot. I think it's in the back of his mind a bit."

At Dayton, the Flyers learned something about the toughness of their Finn and the resiliency of their team. Sean Finn played 10 games with a broken right hand, including 17 minutes against Duke on Dec. 29 in Dayton's first game since he suffered the injury.

"That's an incredible thing to do," Purnell says. "He has played with a lot of courage."

Not to mention with a cast on the right hand, which has made it all but useless when it comes to catching the basketball -- which would have come in a wee bit handy.

Even with the Flyer Finn going one-handed, Dayton won eight straight games -- including wins against Marquette, Richmond, Temple and George Washington. Finn removed the cast this week, which should allow him to give more help to a balanced offense that gets 14.2 points per game from Brooks Hall, 12.6 from Keith Waleskowski and 11.9 from Ramod Marshall.

"Sean has not been able to catch the ball well, which has limited his offensive progression, but without the hard splint on his hand I think he will immediately get better," Purnell says. "He defended well and rebounded well with the broken hand, and now we have an opportunity to really step it up offensively with him able to catch the ball."

Games of the Week

St. Bonaventure at Richmond Saturday Does a good defense beat a good a good offense? It does when the good defense (Richmond) is playing at home. Maryland at Georgia Tech Sunday The Jackets could use a win here to continue their long-shot NCAA tourney hopes. Syracuse at Connecticut Monday Huskies have wobbled on the court and been hit hard by news off it. Hartford Civic Center crowd will give Huskies plenty of support against Orange.

Wake's POY, no Josh-ing
Name a player more valuable to his team than Wake Forest's Josh Howard.

We're waiting.

The Deacons are 15-2 and ranked No. 15 in the country, and the 6-6 Howard is the reason. With him, they are among the handful of teams who could cut down the season's final net. Without him, Wake Forest would be hard-pressed to stay out of the ACC cellar.

It's more than statistics, though stats are a fine place to start. Howard is among ACC leaders in scoring (second, 18.9), rebounds (third, 8.2), steals (third, 2.2), blocked shots (third, 1.5), foul shooting (seventh, 83.3 percent) and field-goal shooting (eighth, 46.9 percent). He is one 3-pointer short of being second in that category, at 42.4 percent, and his 2.2 assists per game is in the Top 20.

Sunday at North Carolina, Howard scored 30 points in the first 39 minutes, and was even better in the 40th. With 21.4 seconds left and the score tied at 75, he drove into the lane, where he muscled home a shot, drew the foul and completed the three-point play. At the other end he got a piece of 6-8 North Carolina forward Jawad Williams' errant three-pointer with 14 seconds left. Game over.

"This is a tough venue to play in," Deacons coach Skip Prosser said of the Smith Center. "(North Carolina) coached and played well, but Josh wasn't having it. In all honesty, I think Josh decided he was going to put the team on his shoulders."

Better than his shins. Howard barely practiced this preseason because of severe shin splints, which was one of the few ways Prosser has discovered to slow down Howard in practice.

"When we came here last year Josh had a reputation of being a less than scintillating practice player," said Prosser, the former Xavier coach. "He has changed that. He comes early, stays late. I have had to take him out of drills -- he doesn't want to come out of anything. He inspires his teammates."

With Howard leading the way, the Deacons have won games at Wisconsin, Richmond and now North Carolina. Despite losing five seniors from last season's 21-13 team, they are somehow better. Other factors are the improvement of sophomores Vytas Danelius (13.4 points, 7.8 rebounds), Taron Downey (10.9 points, 3.8 assists) and Jamaal Levy (6.4 points, 5.6 rebounds), and the arrival of freshmen Eric Williams, Justin Gray and Trent Strickland.

Without Howard, though, the Deacons are mediocre at best.

"He's one of the best players in the country," says Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. "I think it gives his teammates confidence to play with him."

Around the East