Rick Majerus has a lot to worry about right now.

The head coach of the Saint Louis Billikens just lost his associate head coach, Porter Moser to a more lucrative job; the spring signing period begins next week; and he has been informed two of his players, Christian Salecich and Willie Reed, will not be on his squad next year.

Not that any of this worries him.

“We’re going to be fine,” he said in a phone interview from the recruiting road. “I like the guys coming back, I really like the kid from Virginia [John Manning], we have four guys set to visit, and I think everyone has an upside. “I’m going to miss Porter, but life goes on. Players leave, coaches leave, athletic directors leave. That’s just a fact of life.”

Considering the season that was, Majerus has managed to keep an optimistic view of the current situation.

Sure, he still has assistants Alex Jensen and Chris Harriman who will, for the time being, handle recruiting and scheduling, but Moser was the man-in-waiting. Moser re-established the Chicago recruiting pipeline and helped SLU land No. 1 Duke on last season’s schedule.

While acknowledging that Moser was a major player in the SLU men’s basketball program, he was firm in his reassurance that the program will move forward.

“We have a good group coming back, and I think we’re going to get some good games scheduled,” Majerus said. “We’re really close on signing a home-and-home with a top-25 BCS team. Our team is going to be dramatically improved next year, though we may start slow.”
There is no room in his schedule for lamenting the lost season.

“We need to finish up recruiting and get the scheduling down, and then we need to get the players in good shape and get them on a weight program,” Majerus said. “We also need to evaluate what’s best for the program going forward.
“Everything is good.”