The last week has been “hit and miss” for Saint Louis University men’s basketball. Last Saturday, SLU stunned No. 25 Dayton in front of a sell-out crowd at Chaifetz Arena. However, the train came to a screeching halt last night against St. Bonaventure as the Bills (17-11, 8-6) fell 72-55 in New York. The loss ended SLU’s two-game winning streak and brought the team back to reality.
Kwamain Mitchell led the team with 15 points; Kevin Lisch knocked down 13 of his own; Tommie Liddell III and Willie Reed added 7 each to most anemic effort in almost a month.
One bright spot: SLU has won six of the last eight and is at No. 6 in the Atlantic 10 standings.
But the road doesn’t get any easier for the Bills. The young team will have to close out their season with wins against either Duquesne or La Salle to avoid Xavier and Dayton in the first round of the A-10 tournament.
If the Billikens close out the season with wins, they may earn a bid into the National Invitation Tournament.
Last year after losing to the Bonnies, SLU dropped the final two games against Duquesne and Dayton to finish 16-15.
The Bonnies went up 4-1 to open the game, but Barry Eberhardt powered up for a layup and Reed threw down a dunk on their first lead 5-4 four minutes into the game. Johnathan Hall scored 10 straight points for SBU and helped push the Bonnies to a 12-7 lead. Kevin Lisch hit two free throws and a long 3-pointer to keep the Billikens close.
Hall continued his blazing start and tallied 8 of St. Bonaventure’s next 12 points as the Bonnies stretched their advantage to 27-18.
Mitchell began the second half for SLU with a trey, but the Bonnies had three 3-point-play sequences and pushed out to a 42-28 lead four minutes into the half. Mitchell added two free throws, but St. Bonaventure scored 9 straight for a 51-30 lead.
The Billikens chipped into the lead with a 5-0 burst, but SLU was unable to trim the lead to fewer than 15.
Dayton Recap
SLU’s performance against St. Bonaventure came on the heels of an emotional brawl against Dayton: The second time proved to be the charm as the Billikens finally clinched a coveted win against the Flyers. It is the first time SLU has routed Dayton since February 2007; the Billikens lost by one last month.
Lisch led the Billikens, scoring 16 of SLU’s 57 and five in the last forty seconds; Liddell put in ten of his own and had five assists. He is now in the top 10 in scoring, assists, and rebounds all-time.
“They have been playing extraordinarily hard, but they played real smart,” Head Coach Rick Majerus said. “I’m really, really happy for the guys.”
The Billikens seemed to gain momentum from their first sellout at Chaifetz. Saint Louis scored first and stretched the lead to 22-12. The Flyers began to chip away after that; Dayton scored the last 4 points of the half and went down 28-24 at the half.
The Flyers scored the first 5 in the second half to take its first lead. The game seesawed after that with neither team leading by more than 3 until Mitchell converted a 3-point play that gave Saint Louis a 47-42 lead with 3:25 left. Clutch free throw shooting in the final minutes by Lisch sealed the win.
“Saint Louis right now is playing as good as anyone in the league, maybe better,” Dayton coach Brian Gregory said. “To see this team grow has been kind of fun. We lost to a good team on the road in a tough environment to play.”
Lisch says he now believes that the Billikens will have a homecourt advantage after spending more than a decade at the Scottrade Center downtown.
“It’s better than I thought,” he said. “We’d get good fans, but you just couldn’t hear them. This is great.”
