Four Xavier Coaches Missed The Start Of Its Last Game Because They Got Locked Inside The Locker Room

[Source] - "This particular time, Dante shuts the door using some of his Xavier-bred strength and he shut the door very demonstrably and low and behold, we couldn't get out." 

The deadbolt jammed and the door was stuck.

Steele and Jackson made their way to the court for the opening tip with about four minutes left on the countdown clock, while Mario Mercurio, Xavier's associate athletic director for basketball administration, and assistant coaches Hayes, Ben Johnson and Matthew Graves were still locked inside. 

Mercurio happened to have some tools inside the coach's room and he attempted to chip away at the door from the inside. The imprisoned four turned on the Xavier-Oklahoma broadcast on Fox Sports One and they had to slide their substitution charts under the door so they could be delivered to Steele.

This is everyone's irrational fear right? Whether it's a room or an elevator, everyone's fear is the door locks and you can't get out. Granted, being locked in the coach's locker room isn't the worst case scenario the fact is you're stuck. You can't open the door. You have to establish a pee corner if there's no bathroom.

The image of these guys - Jonas is not small by any means - unable to open a door is outrageous to begin with. Then the fact they had to sheepishly slide their substitution patterns under the door so Travis Steele would have it is even better. And if you know Travis, you know he was 100% laughing on the court. 

But going back to being locked in a room, that will test how good of friends you are with people. I don't care if it's 10 minutes or 10 days. You know right away how long you can stand someone. You know how close you are. You can tell right away who you're going to end up fighting, who you team up with, you go into survivor mode right away. Then again, when you're currently on Xavier's staff it's easier to get along.

It's easy to do this when you're 7-0 and rolling and the offense actually looks good again. Perhaps the biggest shock this year is the fact Xavier can shoot again. They were one of the worst shooting teams in the country the last couple of years. But now they are shooting 39.6% from three (33rd in the country) and 73.3% from the free throw line (90th in the country). Just for comparison sake they were 31.2% from three (282nd in the country) and 65.8% from the line (319th in the country) last year. Slight improvement to say the least. Most of it is now the spread offense Xavier can run. Tyrique Jones, Naji Marshall and Quentin Goodin were all good players, but they clogged the lane. That let defenses just sit there and pack. Now? Scruggs has turned into an All-Big East player and has room to attack. Zach Freemantle took a massive jump. They have shooting in KyKy Tandy, Adam Kunkel, Nate Johnson and Freemantle.

Oh and what happened in the game they were locked in?