NCAA Tourney Preview: Who can? A Billiken Can!
By Terry Brown
I’ve made my peace with the University of Kentucky Wildcats not having the opportunity to defend their 2012 NCAA Title in the 2013 NCAA Tournament. I’m disappointed. I’m heart broken, but in the end, they simply lost too many must win games down the stretch to qualify. Does that mean I’m not going to watch the tournament? No. I love basketball to much to avoid it for the next three weeks. That just means I’ll have to root on a different team in the tournament. Am I turning my back on my alma mater? Am I shunning my beloved Wildcats? Nope. I’m doing what any married man will do, I’m siding with my wife and going with her alma mater:
Feb 22, 2013; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Saint Louis Billikens coach Jim Crews reacts on the sidelines against the Butler Bulldogs at Hinkle Fieldhouse. Saint Louis defeats Butler 65-61. Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports
The St. Louis University Billikens.
While I love my wife dearly, that’s not why I’m making them my official dark horse pick for the 2013 tournament. I’m doing it because these guys can flat out play ball and head coach Jim Crews can flat out coach. There’s a reason this Billikens team has done what no SLU team has done in nearly 60 years, they won an outright conference championship. The Bills won the Atlantic 10 regular season and post season championships. And they did it by beating two teams that you might have heard of Butler and VCU, both having recently visited the Final Four.
If you want more proof that these Bills are for real, here you go:
This may sound odd coming from a Kentucky fan, but the Bills are a veteran team. Last season, while the Kentucky Wildcats were cutting down the nets, the Billikens defeated the Memphis Tigers in the first round and gave the number one seeded Michigan State Spartans all they could handle before falling in the second round. And so ended one of the best seasons in SLU history. Head Coach Rick Majerus had returning star players Kwamain Mitchell (The 2013 Atlantic 10 Tournament MVP) and Dwayne Evans and the Billikens poised to make noise in the Atlantic 10 and build off their successful 2011-2012 campaign.
And then, Coach Majerus went on a health related indefinite leave. Assistant Coach Jim Crews became the interim head coach in August 2012, charged with fulfilling the promise of Rick Marjerus, to make SLU basketball special. In its college basketball preview, Sports Illustrated tagged the Billikens with a number 23 ranking, by far the most preseason buzz the program has ever received. Despite the lofty rankings, SLU started the season off slow, losing to Santa Clara, Kansas and Washington and immediately falling off the radar of the once adoring media talking heads.
Mar 15, 2012; Columbus, OH, USA; Saint Louis Billikens head coach Rick Majerus addresses the media before the second round of the 2012 NCAA men
On December 1, 2012, the beloved basketball coach, the Billikens head man, Rick Majerus passed away. He had coached at other places, most notably, leading the University of Utah Utes to the 1998 NCAA Championship game (losing to Tubby Smith and the Wildcats). But, at that moment, he was the coach at St. Louis University. The man that was going to lead the school down the path that Xavier University had set years earlier: to be a small Catholic urban school that was able to compete year in and year out with college basketball’s glory teams, especially in the NCAA Tournament. The Bills struggled a bit after that, but then… then a funny thing happened.
St. Louis beat a ranked New Mexico team. They went 13-3 in the Atlantic 10 conference, winning the regular season conference title. And, over the course of three days in March, they won the A-10 conference tournament title. St. Louis beat Butler (three times) and Virginia Commonwealth (twice) during a stretch that has seen the Billikens drop just one game (in OT at Xavier) since January 23. Is there a hotter team, playing with more purpose than SLU is right now?
St. Louis University has shown that it is committed to basketball and the basketball team. Rick Majerus was hired. A state of the art on-campus facility was built. And, as Forbes magazine points out, the return on this investment is about to be realized. The time is now for the mighty Billkens to make a statement, like the Who’s said to Horton, “We are here!”
Over the course of the season, SLU has won a variety of different ways against a variety of different styles. Perhaps the most intriguing match up in their section of the NCAA bracket is the one seed University of Louisville Cardinals. Everyone knows that the Cards play an intense full court, high pressure defense. But, the Bills just defeated the team, VCU, that Sports Illustrated dubbed has having an “unmatched” full court “havoc” defense. The guards, despite having 18 turnovers in the A-10 championship game, were poised when they had to be and weathered the VCU storm, leading the way to victory. The Billikens are balanced, with almost five players averaging double digit scoring (from Dwayne Evans’s 12.9 points per game to Jordair Jett’s 9.8).
The spirit of the larger than life figure of Rick Marjerus hangs over the St. Louis Basketball program, even as interim coach Jim Crews coached his way to being the Sporting News Coach of the Year. The St. Louis Billikens are playing for Coach Majerus. They’re playing for Coach Crews. They’re playing for their school. But most importantly, they’re playing for themselves. And if they keep playing that way, the St. Louis Billikens will be playing in Atlanta.