Cincinnati ? Romain Sato hit three-pointers. Lionel Chalmers drove inside and passed. Preseason All-America David West roamed the floor and picked his shots.

This is what No. 11 Xavier wants to look like.

Sato scored 23 points and Xavier used a diversified offense – one less reliant on its best player – to beat St. Peter’s 87-48 Monday night in the first round of the Preseason NIT.

With Will Caudle and Anthony Myles shoring up the front line, West was free to roam and shoot jumpers in a retooled, half-court offense. The forward used his newfound freedom to score 21 points.

“With this team, you’re going to have to pick your poison,” said West, who shot jumpers and driving bank shots and was 9-of-16 from the field. “We have a lot of weapons. It was our first game, and we’re going to get better.”

It was exactly what Xavier was hoping to get out of its first game against an overmatched team. St. Peter’s missed 17 of its first 20 shots against Xavier’s tight man-to-man defense and never seriously threatened.

The Musketeers will play Stanford, which beat Boston University 61-57, in the second round on Wednesday night.

Myles, a 6-foot-9 junior college transfer, scored eight points and had two rebounds. Caudle, a 6-9 redshirt freshman, had four first-half points and two rebounds.

Chalmers added nine points and five assists and steadied the offense as Xavier put away a struggling opponent – something the Musketeers often struggled to do in the past.

“We understand that to be a great team, we’ve got to be able to do that,” Chalmers said. “We stayed on top of them. The more we continue to do that, the better we’ll be at it.”

Xavier was No. 10 in the AP’s preseason poll primarily because West decided to come back for his senior season.

St. Peter’s tried to contain West with a zone that bracketed him whenever he got the ball.

West scored the game’s first basket on a driving bank shot, then settled in and passed to open teammates on the perimeter.

Sato hit two three-pointers and had 10 points as the Musketeers pulled ahead 20-5. Xavier used nine players in the first 12 minutes.