Washington, D.C. — Last Sunday the Xavier basketball team gathered at coach Sean Miller's home to watch as the pairings for the NCAA tournament were announced. While waiting, they began watching Georgia play Arkansas in the SEC championship game.

And something unusual happened.

The Xavier players started cheering for Georgia.

"How could you not pull for those guys?" guard Drew Lavender said. "They overcame so much. They had to play two games in one day just to get to the championship game. And then they won it."

"Oh, we were rooting hard for Georgia," forward Josh Duncan said. "We were really happy when they won."

But all those warm thoughts changed less than an hour later when they saw their name pop up opposite those Cinderella Bulldogs in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

"I called a friend of mine as soon as it happened," guard Stanley Burrell said. "I said 'Oh, wow! We're playing America's Team!'"

Xavier players could not say enough positive things about what Georgia accomplished in the SEC tournament last weekend.

"What impressed me the most was the fact that those guys stuck together," Duncan said. "When they learned they might have to play two games in one day, they could have just packed it in. They had already had a tough season. It would have been really easy to just let up. They didn't."

But as much as the Xavier players say they admire what Georgia accomplished to get to today's 12:20 p.m. game at the Verizon Center, they are determined that the Bulldogs are not going to advance.

"Georgia deserves to be here and they deserve to have everybody loving on them the way they are," said Burrell, the Atlantic-10 defensive player of the year. "But we want this thing just as much as they do. This Cinderella story needs to end right now."

Xavier knows a little something about what Georgia has done. Two years ago the Musketeers had to win four games in four days to win the A-10 tournament and earn a berth in the NCAA field. The Musketeers were installed as a No. 14 seed, like Georgia, and played No. 3 seed Gonzaga.

The Musketeers battled for 40 minutes before finally losing 79-75.

"We could have won that game," Burrell said. "We were a 14 and they were a 3 but there was not that much difference in the two teams. We haven't forgotten that."

But today the roles will be reversed. Xavier (27-6), the Atlantic 10 regular season champions and a team that was ranked in the Top 10 at one point this season, is the No. 3 seed and heavily favored to beat Georgia. In the history of the NCAA Tournament, the No. 14 seed is 15-77 in first round play.

This is the same Xavier team that was beating Ohio State by 11 with less than eight minutes to go in the second round of last season's NCAA tournament. The Buckeyes beat Xavier in overtime and eventually played Florida for the national title in Atlanta.

Simply put, this senior-laden Xavier team has big plans for this NCAA tournament. They are not going to let Georgia stand in their way.

"It's survive and advance," Lavender said. "You either win or you go home. We admire what Georgia did. But now it's time for somebody to go home and we don't want it to be us."