Albany and Xavier have the holiday spirit

Jeff Goodman, the King of Scoop, snagged a nice bit of scoopage on Monday morning involving Mark Lyons, Xavier's second-leading scorer.

Lyons is a native of Schenectady, NY, a small, blue-collar city near Albany. Lyons was back home for the Christmas holiday, meaning that he was just like everyone else trying to travel on Sunday or Monday -- stuck. Thanks to a snow storm that did this.

While most of us enjoy being snowed in -- no work, no school, nothing but hot cocoa and sweats all day -- Lyons had a game to play in Cincinnati. Ironically, the game was against Albany. So what did Lyons do?

He rode with Albany, taking a 12 hour, overnight trip that put him into Cincinnati early yesterday morning.

"When Coach Mack called me and first told me about it, I said, 'I can't do that,'" Lyons told Goodman. "But it was the only way to get back."

Tu Holloway, a native of Hempstead, NY, which is on Long Island, was also supposed to travel with Albany, but he was unable to catch a train due to the weather.

"I've got him in a headlock right now," Albany head coach Will Brown joked early on in the ride. "One bottle of water and no food for the 12-hour trip. We're letting him watch the movie with our team, though, and I also gave him our scout on Xavier to study."

"It was obviously really, really nice of Will Brown to do this," Xavier head coach Chris Mack told Goodman.

"Hopefully, he doesn't get beat up on the way here."