Have the real Billikens stood up?

It seemed that coming into the Saint Louis University-Mizzou basketball game, everyone knew who the Bills could be. It seems as though we now know who they are.

The Billikens took the No. 2 team in the country to the brink in front of 20,602 screaming fans at the Savvis center Monday night. It was the coming out party that all Bills fans had been waiting for, and the Bills have nothing to show for it except a 69-67 loss.

Missouri’s coach Quin Snyder said, “We knew what kind of team SLU was capable of being.” It was that SLU team that dominated the first half and held Mizzou to 10 percent shooting from behind the arc for the game.

It was a game of two completely opposite halves. In the first half, the Bills cleaned the glass board for board with the Tigers. The Bills actually out-rebounded the Tigers 20-19 and 8-5 on the offensive glass. The Bills created second-shot opportunities and didn’t allow Mizzou to dominate in the paint.

The Bills rebounding control was mainly due to the inspired play of junior Kenny Brown. Halfway through the first half Brown already had seven rebounds, five of which were offensive, and eight points. “Kenny started to play tonight like he did in the preseason.

He showed tonight why he has been in the starting lineup for every game this year,” said SLU coach Lorenzo Romar.

In the second half, Mizzou took control of the glass and subsequently took control of the inside game. By the end of the game the Tigers had out-boarded the Bills 43-31 and 17-11 offensively.

It was the play of center Arthur Johnson that brought the Tigers to life in the second half. Johnson was dominated by Brown early, but came back to stand his ground late in the game. Johnson ended up with 14 points and 16 rebounds for the game. While Johnson did not outplay Brown in any facet of the game, his reemergence in the second half helped Mizzou contain the Bills big man.

“That is a very good basketball team that we played tonight. They are close to the same team as last year, but Arthur Johnson makes them a whole lot better team than they were last year,” said Romar.

While the inside game and rebounding edge went to Mizzou, the outside shooting was completely and utterly dominated by the Bills. The Billikens shot 61.5 percent from behind the arc for the game held Mizzou to one of ten from downtown.

“We live by the three and die by the three, and tonight we didn’t get as good of a three point shot as we would have liked to. You have to give credit to SLU’s defense, they played a heck of a game,” said Snyder.

“We had to take away their three-point shots by getting our hands up on defense,” Bills junior point guard Marque Perry.

Conversely to the Tigers, the Billikens went 6-10 from three-point range in the first half. The Tigers were giving the Billikens space and the shooters made Mizzou pay by hitting big shots.

In the second half, Mizzou tightened its perimeter defense and tried to take away the three-point shot of the Bills. Junior Drew Diener said, “In the second half they stayed tighter to me and it opened up lanes for Marque.”

“SLU’s offense in the second half turned into Marque’s penetration,” Snyder said. “I had a premonition of that occurring a few years ago when I saw Marque take Jason Williams (Duke player of the year candidate) at will in a camp during high school.”

It was the play of Perry that kept SLU in the ballgame when time was running down. Perry scored the last 9 points for SLU in a span of 39 seconds. “Marque has the ability to do that. He was well-rested at the end of the game, because realistically you can’t just let him go for 40 straight minutes,” Romar said.

It was Perry’s clutch three pointer that tied the game for the Bills with 4.8 seconds remaining. With 17.4 seconds on the clock, Perry brought the ball up and looked to dish off to a shooter on the wing. When no one got open Perry yo-yo’d up and down around the top of the arc. Finally, Perry put the ball on the floor, created some space, and put up the shot.

“The play was designed to come off a screen, it didn’t develop as planned and I ended up getting space,” Perry said.

As Perry’s trey passed through the net, Savvis Center erupted into pandemonium. In the game that seemed on the brink of being a blowout, the Bills had somehow managed to tie it up.

That left Mizzou with 4.8 seconds on the clock and the length of the floor to go. After a timeout, the Tigers brought the ball into guard Wesley Stokes’ hands near midcourt. Stokes brought the ball near the three-point line, pushed off Perry, stepped in and sank the game-winning 18-footer. It was a miraculous ending to a miraculous game.

In a game that had been so up and down throughout, it was only fitting that it ended the way that it did.

A lot was made of the loss for SLU after the game, but the team seemed to have a good perspective on it all.

“Every loss hurts, but you learn from them and move on,” Perry said.

“We are proud of our guys. A lot has been made of the fact that we have no seniors, and it takes awhile to grow up, but we are learning what sacrifices need to be made to win basketball games,” Romar said. “We will find our way, if we build from here we will win some ballgames along the way.”

The Billikens will be in action tonight at 9 p.m. as they take on the Washington Huskies on the road. The game will air on Charter Communications.

“Both teams made winning plays throughout the game-we just had the ball last,” Snyder said.

He is right, the game could have gone either way and the outcome always seemed to be in doubt, but one thing is for sure: It was simply the best college basketball game of the year.