Notice the part where I said "even when they're the hot team?" Obviously you'd expect teams without byes to go farther on average. That's a no-brainer. But it's also pretty common that a team gets hot at the right time, makes a run, and then runs out of gas.
Plain and simple, a young, tired, and flawed-but-filled-with-potential team overlooked an opponent and won by a smaller margin than expected. I simply refuse to read too much into that. I am more interested in why we handled ISU in the first half and then collapse and just generally looked flat against Xavier. Those games are far more concerning.
The entire thing has been concerning, including MVS and Maui. We like to make excuses but other teams do not. Iowa State played at Maui, they played yesterday, beat Omaha 82-55 (in addition to beating San Diego State in Maui by 30 after they played us). It does not seem that running out of gas was a problem for them. Obviously, Gonzaga played yesterday as well and beat North Dakota State by 42 and they also had a much tougher run at Maui.
The entire Maui and MVS has been concerning. I also think the positives of Maui have been exaggerated, too much emphasis on "playing Gonzaga tough" where we honestly needed an extraordinary performance in the second half by Frazier, we simply will not be successful with just Frazier's heroics. Most importantly, we seem like a very easy team to scout. Not only our porous defense, but once teams start guarding Frazier tighter, we simply do not seem to have many options.