It wasn't supposed to be this way. Rick Majerus arrived in St. Louis last season, a surprise choice to coach the Billikens, then the team staggered to a 16-15 finish.
The big guy is going to be pressed to match that record this season. St. Louis is 2-4 after a humbling 64-48 loss Tuesday at Southern Illinois.
"We kind of fell apart there at the end," guard Kevin Lisch said.
There are nine freshmen on the roster and although it's only December, the wear and tear is starting to show not only on the players, but Majerus and St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer Tom Timmermann.
"No practice for SLU [Wednesday]," Timmermann wrote. "Last year, it became a familiar refrain from Rick Majerus to talk about how bad travel was for SLU in the Atlantic 10. After the third or fourth time he started telling me about it, I stopped him and said, 'Rick, I make these trips too. You don't have to tell me how bad they are.' (For the record, in part because of weather and fewer flights out of St. Louis, last year was the worst year for travel I've ever seen.)
"The last two weeks haven't been easy, and I'm not going to class or studying for finals."
St. Louis recently announced ticket discounts for several games, even though the team is playing in the sparkling Chaifetz Arena, a 10,600-seat on-campus facility that opened this fall.
On the plus side, the Billikens play their next four games at home and the opponents are manageable: Savannah State, Samford, USC Upstate (huh?) and Liberty. But it's clear that nothing is going to come easy for the Billikens.
USC Upstate is what used to be USC-Spartanburg. Though considering the signs you see on the road you might as well call it the University of I-85
Posted by: James | December 04, 2008 at 05:09 AM