Friday night, the Savvis Center was host to a matchup similar to David versus Goliath. This time, Goliath won.

The Saint Louis University men’s basketball team began the preseason exhibition series by downing the Northwest All-Stars 103-55.

The Billikens scored first off a three-pointer from junior guard Josh Fisher and blazed ahead 10-2 just three minutes into the game.

The All-Stars attempted to recover from the early deficit, but could not surpass the Billikens.

After the first timeout, the Bills went on an eight-minute scoring rampage, making good on every shot.

They poured in 20 points during the run, which was highlighted by junior forward Chris Braun’s five consecutive points, as well as three-pointers from junior guards Drew Diener and Marque Perry.

During the eight-minute span, the All-Stars managed 16 points, but missed two free throws and committed four fouls.

For the remainder of the first half, the Bills steadily increased their lead over the All-Stars.

By the end of the half, SLU pushed ahead by as much as 29 points, and finally closed the half at 49-22.

The Billikens out shot the All-Stars by an incredible margin during the first half. Saint Louis was 41 percent from the field, while the All-Stars could only muster 25 percent.

Diener connected on three of his four three-point attempts, and helped the Bills post 46.2 percent for three-pointers.

Braun and sophomore forward Ross Varner led the Bills in free throws with two and three, respectively, which allowed the Bills to shoot 77.8 percent from the line.

“We maintained a substantial lead throughout a good majority of the game,” said coach Lorenzo Romar. “We didn’t get distracted, we didn’t lose our concentration. We had a few lapses in taking care of the basketball and had a few mental mistakes, but overall maintained our concentration.”

Thirty-four seconds into the second half, sophomore center Kenny Brown breezed past the All-Star defense for an easy layup.

The All-Stars tried to prevent another Billiken scoring run by calling a time out, but were unsuccessful.

Diener drained another three-point shot 24 seconds after the timeout, which was followed by a field goal from Braun.

After a lay up four minutes later from sophomore swingman Chris Sloan, the Bills led the All-Stars by 44 points.

The All-Stars managed to chip away slowly at the SLU lead by taking advantage of fouls called on Perry, Brown, and Fisher and hitting free throws to bring the score to 72-32 before SLU called timeout.

Two minutes after the timeout, Perry ignited the Billiken offense, scoring seven points in less than three minutes to put the Bills up by 48 points.

As the game drew to a close, the Bills continued their relentless attack. The final SLU scoring streak began with 2:55 left to play. Sloan made a pair of free throws, and combined efforts with freshman guard Randy Pulley to score the final ten points for the Bills.

With 1:05 remaining, Pulley netted a pair of free throws and made the final basket of the game for the Billikens just eight seconds later, giving the Bills a 53-point lead, the largest lead of the game.

The All-Stars managed two more baskets before the final buzzer, with a lay up from Antonio Manns and a three-pointer from Ryan Hansen, which would be good enough to cut the All-Star deficit to less than 50 points.

Despite the tremendous offensive efforts from the Billikens and the lax defense from the All-Stars, the Billikens committed 22 turnovers, which troubled Romar.

“We need to become a better defensive team and also be mentally tough in order to be successful,” Romar said.

As expected by Romar, the Billiken offense was strong, due to stellar performances by returning players, as well as the Billiken newcomers.

“There really weren’t any surprises as far as offense goes. We recruited certain guys to do certain things, and they came through,” Romar said. “Ross Varner and Kenny Brown were recruited to provide strength inside, and Randy Pulley was recruited to be a younger point guard.”

Perry led the Billikens in scoring with 24 points. Just behind Perry was Diener with 21 points, all of which came from behind the three-point line.

Braun chipped in 17 points and pulled down 15 boards to lead the team in rebounding. Fisher added 11 points, seven rebounds, and five assists, while Pulley put up 10 points.