The Billikens' March to the Tournament Continues

For the first time in quite a while, the St. Louis University basketball season hit a snag.

They dropped a game at Rhode Island, the last place team in the Atlantic-10 Conference. The itself would be bad enough on its own, but how it happened made it even worse. SLU had a 10-point lead with 10 minutes remaining against a team that had won just five basketball games all season coming into the tilt against SLU. The Billikens even lead by two with under two minutes left. But the team settled for three-pointers and jump shots the rest of the way, rather than going to their senior and leading scorer, Brian Conklin, inside. Threes are great when they're falling. A team can live off of them, like Duke did against North Carolina a few weeks ago, when they attempted 38 shots from beyond the arc. However, when they're not going in, a team has to look for other options, especially inside. The Billikens didn't go that route and it cost them.

The Rhode Island loss transformed the Billikens' home finale, senior night against Xavier, from a win that would be nice to have into a game that they probably needed in order to still make the NCAA tournament. The Bills came out sluggish in the first half. Maybe it was jitters. Perhaps it was just a fired up Xavier team that needed the win even more than SLU just working the home team. But whatever it was, the Billikens found themselves 10 points behind the Musketeers at halftime. SLU went from a six-game winning streak and a practical lock to make the tournament to a bubble team in big trouble in just three short halves.

Xavier came out and scored the first point of the second half, getting a free throw to expand their lead over the Billikens to 40-29. The senior, Conklin, then took over for SLU on senior night. The Billikens went on a ridiculous 24-2 run and like magic, an 11-point SLU deficit became an 11-point lead. During that run, Conklin scored 11 of the Bills' 24 points. He would finish with 23 points for the game, picking up 15 of them after the break. Seniors are supposed to carry a team and Conklin certainly did that Tuesday night. Winning at Duquesne would be a nice boost for SLU heading into the conference tournament in Atlantic City and could certainly help their seed. However, earning a sweep of Xavier, one of the league's top tier teams, the Billikens will probably get an at-large bid for the first time in over a decade if they fail to win the conference tournament.

When the Bills make their long awaited return to the big dance, the 12-year old kid in me that ran  circles around my house after SLU knocked of UMass in their last tourney win will probably be in the mood to do the Homer Simpson chicken spin dance. And with my apartment being pretty much completely hardwood floors, I wouldn't put it past me.

Thanks to Rushthecourt.net for the photo.

Billikens Basketball is Back

On Wednesday night, the St. Louis University Billikens did something that no Atlantic-10 team had done in six years. They won at Xavier.

The little kid in me wanted to do what I did as an eighth grader when the Billikens won an NCAA tournament game against the University of Massachusetts. When SLU made it to the second round of the big dance, I had just gotten home from middle school and watched the last ten minutes or so of the game. After they won, I sprinted around my house yelling, slipped on the hardwood floor in the hallway and hit my knee, which hurt quite a bit. I then got up and continued running around the house in circles yelling. I was simply more cautious when I got in the hallway. I was at work, so I didn't do that, but I certainly wanted to run through the halls. SLU went on to lose to Kentucky in the second round and I hate them to this very day for that very reason. I at least got to have reverse revenge on the Wildcats through Duke, though.

What's reverse revenge? It's bragging rights that you didn't know about when you became a fan of a team. I became a fan of Duke because my dad liked them and because my Aunt Missy's father, Papa, was a basketball manager for them many years ago. What I later found out is that one of the most famous college basketball games of all time involved Duke beating Kentucky on a buzzer beater by Christian Laettner to advance to the Final Four. I have enjoyed reverse revenge on the Cowboys via the Steelers and the Brewers and many others via the Cardinals as well. It's not as good as seeing it happen and not needing Wikipedia or Youtube to pull it up, but it works well enough to shut up most people. But I digress.

I've added reasons to hate the Wildcats over the year, like how they ran a good man out of town in Tubby Smith and replaced him with a twice-proven cheater, in John Calipari. Maybe they'll run Calipari out of town if he gets a Final Four vacated there like he did at Memphis and UMass. Kentucky also seems to have a hand in keeping my brackets from winning every year. I still have placed high enough to make the money the last two years, but haven't won. And by money I mean play money because betting real money on such things isn't legal. Now, back to the Billikens!

SLU hasn't had an at-large berth to the NCAA tournament since the Larry Hughes season that Kentucky ended. They went on a crazy run to win the 2000 Conference USA tournament, allowing them to lose to current head coach Rick Majerus' Utah squad, but that was an automatic berth. Everything is coming full circle now for the Billikens. The man who knocked them out of their last tournament is trying to lead them back there and their next big test is on the road against the last team that they defeated in the NCAA tournament: You guessed it. Frank Stallone. No, just kidding, it's UMass like I said earlier. But how often do I get to make references to old SNL bits in a sports blog? I think it's allowed since it's from roughly the same time period as the NCAA tournament game I'm referencing.

SLU's RPI jumped nine spots up to 42 in the country after Wednesday's win over Xavier. If they can knock off the Minutemen on Saturday, SLU would take the tiebreaker against one of the four schools that they are currently tied with for the conference lead before coming home against a very beatable St. Bonaventure team. Due to the Xavier victory, UMass isn't a must-win, but it certainly would be nice for the Bills to keep their run going before coming back home to Chaifetz Arena, where they lose very rarely and springboard SLU's season towards an at-large NCAA tournament berth that they've been anticipating for over a decade.