The schedule for the Saint Louis University men’s basketball
team’s final season in Conference USA includes a more balanced
conference schedule and a season-opening trip to paradise.

The regular-season slate, which begins when the Billikens open
the season in the Paradise Jam from November 19-22, played in St.
Thomas, Virgin Islands, should be an improvement over last season’s
schedule. This could help the Billikens reach basketball paradise
next March with an NCAA Tournament bid.

The improved schedule includes 15 teams that participated in
postseason tournaments in 2003-04, and 11 games against teams that
finished in the top 50 of the all-important Ratings Power Index, or
RPI. Last season, SLU’s non-conference opponents had an average RPI
of 152. The Billikens’ non-conference opponents from this season
had an average RPI in 2003-04 of 132, which paired with the
strength of the Conference USA schedule, should give SLU a strength
of schedule in the top 50 in the country.

“That will be a much better chance to make us more attractive to
the selection committee on Selection Sunday,” SLU head men’s
basketball coach Brad Soderberg said.

Even though this year’s schedule doesn’t feature a preseason
top-five team, as last year’s schedule did with Arizona, it does
include road games at Gonzaga and Southern Illinois, as well as
match-ups with quality teams from lesser known conferences, such as
Austin Peay and Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

In past seasons, collegiate teams would play teams of former
college players during the preseason. That

tradition has now come to an end as an NCAA ruling in the past
year has barred such teams from playing collegiate teams. As a
result of the ruling, SLU will play local schools University of
Missouri-St. Louis and Truman State University in exhibition games
on Nov. 5 and Nov. 13, respectively.

In addition to SLU, the season opening Paradise Jam will feature
Arkansas, Winthrop, Eastern Michigan, Austin Peay and Troy
State.

The format of the tournament will divide the six teams into two
pools, with Austin Peay, who went 12-0 in the Ohio Valley
Conference schedule last season, and Eastern Michigan joining SLU
in one pool, and with Arkansas, Winthrop and Troy State forming the
other pool. The first two days of the tournament will be devoted to
pool play, with the championship, third place, and fifth place
games taking place on the final day.

Upon returning from the Virgin Islands, SLU will host Oral
Roberts University, of the Mid-Continent Conference, at the Savvis
Center on Saturday Nov. 27 in the Billikens’ home opener. After a
week without games, the Universities of Hawaii and
Wisconsin-Milwaukee will visit the Billikens on the Saturday Dec. 4
and Tuesday Dec. 7, respectively.

SLU’s first road game of the season will be far from easy, as
they travel to Spokane, Wash. for a Dec. 11 tilt with fellow Jesuit
school Gonzaga University in their new arena. In the past decade,
the Bulldogs have gone from a relative unknown in the minds of
college basketball fans to a perennial power out of the West Coast
Conference.

Four days after the match-up with Gonzaga, Oakland University in
Michigan will face the Billikens at the Savvis Center on Dec. 15.
SLU will get a look at one of its future fellow Atlantic 10
Conference members when the University of Dayton Flyers meet the
Billikens on Saturday Dec. 18. This season, the game between the
two teams will be a non-conference affair, but the Billikens and
Flyers will face each other twice in 2005-06 when SLU joins the
Atlantic 10 Conference.

The Billikens conclude 2004 with games against regional foes.
SLU will travel to Carbondale, Ill. on Dec. 21 to play the Southern
Illinois University Salukis, who have played in the past three NCAA
Tournaments and won the Missouri Valley Conference regular season
championship each of those three seasons. After a break for
Christmas, intra-state rival Southeast Missouri State University
will travel to St. Louis to face the Billikens at the Savvis Center
on Dec. 29. New Year’s Eve for the Billikens will be spent in Iowa
City, Iowa, against the University of Iowa Hawkeyes in a rematch of
the first round match-up in the National Invitation Tournament
between the two teams, which was played at the Family Arena in
nearby St. Charles. The Billikens won the game last year on a
buzzer-beating three pointer by SLU guard Anthony Drejaj.

This season, SLU only plays back-to back road games on one
occasion. In avoiding long road trips, a team can experience a
boost in confidence.

The Billikens will play Marquette, DePaul and Charlotte twice
each, with one game in St. Louis and another on the road. Of the
other ten teams in the conference, Tulane, Cincinnati, Texas
Christian University, Alabama-Birmingham and Memphis will travel to
St. Louis, while the Billikens will go on the road to face Southern
Mississippi, East Carolina, Houston, South Florida and
Louisville.

At the end of the 2003-04 regular season, five teams,
Alabama-Birmingham, Charlotte, Cincinnati, DePaul and Memphis, all
finished in a tie for the regular season C-USA championship. All
five of those teams will meet the Billikens at the Savvis Center
this season, which should make for a few attractive match-ups for
fans.

“I think it’s more of a benefit for our fans than anything
else,” Soderberg said.

Of the eight teams that the Billikens will face on the road,
only DePaul, Charlotte and Louisville finished ahead of SLU in the
conference standings last season, where the Billikens finished
seventh.

From March 9-12, the Conference USA tournament will be played in
Memphis, Tenn. The tournament will be played at the FedEx Center,
the new arena in the city.

The last time the men’s conference tournament was played in
Memphis in 2000, SLU won four consecutive games in as many days to
win the tournament title and gain an automatic bid into the NCAA
Tournament, the last appearance in the NCAA Tournament for the
Billikens.