This was a season that started with much promise and much uncertainty.
The Billikens were coming off yet another season in which they started off slowly and heated up at the end, missing the NCAA tournament by only one or two early season near-misses.
But coach Brad Soderberg led the squad to a first-round NIT victory over Iowa and also brought in a talented group of recruits to plug the various holes that graduation left, as well as to boost the overall talent level of the team.
Guys like Vas'Shun Newborne and Dwayne Polk were obviously supposed to contribute from the beginning, but other talented newcomers like Danny Brown and Luke Meyer were to not only be the future of the program, but also help contribute to the present.
Something happened on the road to improvement, however. The Bills lost four of their first five games by a grand total of 12-points combined, including back to back losses to Oral Roberts and Hawaii- by a single point.
All of a sudden where once there was promise, now there was only anguish.
The two returning starters of which much was being expected on the offensive side, Reggie Bryant and Izik Ohanon, couldn't seem to find their rhythms.
Tom Frericks, a "born rebounder" as Soderberg has called him, has been hampered by a series of injuries, including his latest, a concussion.
Ian Vouyoukas, the man in the middle for the Billikens, has been so hot-cold that there is just an aura of uncertainty hanging over him every time he takes the court. When he is on, he can just about dominate, offensively and defensively, but when he is struggling, air-balls and foul trouble are the norm.
And with Frericks's health a constant question, the only thing Soderberg can do is go with a small lineup-Something which isn't that likely seeing as that most of the Conference USA lineups boast at least one, if not two, bruisers in the paint, which would feast off of lineups like that.
In all fairness there have been some flashes of brilliance. Ohanon is leading the team in scoring this season and is living up to some of the promise that he brought with him when he first came to SLU.
The same can be said for Anthony Drejaj. The guard that got the late scholarship offer the summer before his freshman year had a rough pre-season.
When approached about it by Soderberg, he dropped one of the best quotes of the season: "Coach, you know I can't play until I smell the hot dogs."
It was his way of explaining poor practices, but he doesn't seem to have been lying. Drejaj's stat-line has never stood out among the rest of the team, but he is definitely one of those players who elevates his game, and the game of the players around him once he steps on the court.
And though it is not often pretty, it works.
The two wild cards on this team are perhaps the two players who just "fit the mold" of what basketball players are supposed to be, but that does not mean that they are by any means the best players on the team. Those two players are Justin Johnson, who sat out the beginning of the season for violating team rules, and Danny Brown, a transfer from Air Force Academy Prep School in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Johnson is finally getting back in the groove of things and is starting to get more playing time.
Still, he has yet to show that he can take over a game the way most fans had hoped when he first came here.
There are two big questions following the 3-11 start that most fans must be asking:
-Why not scrap the season, plug in all of your young talent and get them the experience that will help them and the team down the road?
-Where is Luke Meyer?
First things first: There is still a part of the season to be salvaged, and on top of that, it wouldn't be fair for guys like Bryant and Ohanon to ride the pine in their last year, after putting in the time and work they have over the last few years.
The second question is a bit tougher. Meyer was told that he could be the sixth man for the Stanford Cardinal this season if he had signed there, but he gave the hometown team the benefit of the doubt, especially after seeing the talent that was being brought in with him and the promise of a new start in the Atlantic 10 next year.
But so far, when Meyer isn't being brought in for mop-up duty or to spot an injured guard, he is sitting further down the bench than Peyton Jacks and Ian Mooney (two walk-ons). But no one can seem to figure out why.
In any event, after their latest trouncing at the hands of Cincinnati, the Billikens will now try and run through the meat of their conference schedule and win a couple of games against the mid-level talent of C-USA.
It remains to be seen if there will be any major roster shake-ups in the coming weeks, but it can be said with much certainty that the present strategies just aren't working.
In his first season with the Bills, Soderberg put together an impressive season-ending win streak. A repeat may be in order to salvage 2005.
