It is only November, but Xavier coach Chris Mack believes his team's performance this week in winning the Tire Pros Invitational will pay off in March.

Trevon Bluiett and Edmond Sumner combined for 38 points, and No. 11 Xavier knocked off scrappy Northern Iowa 67-59 Sunday in the tournament championship game at HP Field House in Orlando, Fla.

Bluiett, who was named tournament MVP, finished with 21 points and eight rebounds. Sumner added 17 points for the Musketeers (5-0).

Senior guard Jeremy Morgan scored 20 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to lead the Panthers (3-1). Morgan was named to the all-tournament team. Junior forward Bennett Koch added 11 points for Northern Iowa, but he committed six turnovers.

Xavier opened the second half with 14-4 run and led 44-30 after a Bluiett jumper with 13:38 to play. The Musketeers scored 12 straight points during one stretch of the second half and turned up the defensive pressure and forced Northern Iowa to settle for jump shots.

"They're every bit as good as we thought watching them on film and seeing them in person here," Northern Iowa coach Ben Jacobson said of Xavier. "Sometimes you get into the game and teams are not quite what they seem like on film, but Xavier is every bit as good and in some ways even better. We had a tremendous amount of respect before the game started, and I have even more now. They've got so many ways they can beat you."

Northern Iowa's Klint Carlson, who was coming off a career performance in the Panthers' semifinal win over Oklahoma, couldn't get going against the Musketeers' defense. Carlson had 22 points against the Sooners, but he finished with just nine points on 3-of-10 shooting against Xavier.

Musketeers freshman forward Tyrique Jones got loose in the paint for a two-handed power dunk that gave Xavier a 58-46 lead with four minutes to play before Northern Iowa made its last push.

Juwan McCloud had a steal and a layup, and Jordan Ashton knocked down a 3-pointer to trim the Xavier lead to 58-53 with 1:23 left.

"That's what we were trying to do coming down to the end, just try to make it close and give ourselves a chance coming down the stretch," Morgan said. "We needed to make some more plays down the end and cut back on some of the turnovers and we give ourselves a better chance."

However, Xavier made its free throws in the closing stages to finish off the Panthers.

"I thought our effort on the defensive end was phenomenal," Mack said. "When we had our struggles down the stretch, it didn't diminish our effort, our intensity, our talk."

Xavier posted wins over Missouri and Clemson to advance to the championship game and claimed its second regular-season tournament title in as many years.

The Musketeers won last year's Advocare Invitational.

"We beat three teams that will help our resume," Mack said of the Tire Pros event. "We'll hopefully be in a position where we're playing three games in three days in a few months, and we can always look back and use this as an experience that helped us quickly turn the page and prepare for a different style and be ready to play on the next night."

Mack said the Panthers were the toughest challenge of the bunch.

"I thought we faced the hardest playing, most disciplined, most well-coached team we could of faced," Mack said of Northern Iowa, which overcame an 18-point deficit in its semifinal win over Oklahoma. The Panthers couldn't pull off another comeback against Xavier, though.

Northern Iowa got off to a quick start against the Musketeers, with Hunter Rhodes' 3-pointer giving the Panthers a 16-7 lead with 10:52 left in the first half. J.P. Macura hit back-to-back 3-pointers to spark Xavier.

Quentin Goodin's layup capped 19-6 Xavier run and put the Musketeers up 26-22 with five minutes before halftime.

Northern Iowa stayed close, with Carlson knocking down a 3-pointer to give the Panthers the lead back at 28-26. The game was tied 30-30 at halftime.

The teams will see each other again Saturday at Xavier.

NOTES: Sunday's game was the first meeting between Northern Iowa and Xavier. ... Northern Iowa overcame an 18-point deficit to beat Oklahoma in the second round, tying the Panthers' largest comeback win in the school's NCAA Division I history. ... Xavier junior G Trevon Bluiett and sophomore G Edmond Sumner were both selected to the preseason All-Big East first team, along with the watch lists for the Wooden and Naismith awards ... Four of Xavier's top six scorers from last season's NCAA Tournament team are back.