The league office recognized five members of the Atlantic 10 champion Saint Louis University Billikens Tuesday afternoon. Interim coach Jim Crews was named Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year, senior forward Cody Ellis was selected as the conference’s Sixth Man of the Year and junior forward Dwayne Evans was named first-team All-Conference.
Evans was joined on the All-Conference teams by guards Kwamain Mitchell and Jordair Jett, both of whom were named to the third team. Jett was also voted to the A-10 All-Defensive team for the second year in a row, while Evans was named to the conference’s All-Academic squad.
In addition to being named a conference Coach of the Year for the fifth time in his career, Crews, who figures to be a contender for the national award, was named Coach of the Year by The Sporting News.
Wrote The Sporting News’ Seth Greenberg: “There’s a narrative attached to Sporting News’ College Basketball Coach of the Year, and it goes something like this: Jim Crews led his band of overachievers from the depths of Majerus’ passing to the heights of an Atlantic 10 championship… But that narrative misses so much.”
Crews was named interim coach on August 24 and has since led Saint Louis to a 24-6 finish to the regular season and its first outright regular season title since 1957.
He is the first SLU coach to be named conference coach of the year since the Missouri Valley picked Eddie Hickey in 1952 and 1957. Former Billiken coach Charlie Spoonhour was National Coach of the Year in 1994, but he did not win the Great Midwest Conference Coach of the Year award.
Ellis, who came off the bench in all 30 games during the regular season, averages 26 minutes per outing and is third on the team in scoring at 10.1 points per game. He became the 27th member of the school’s 1,000-point club earlier this season and is at 1,013 points for his career heading into the Atlantic 10 Championship.
Evans, the March 5 Player of the Week selection, leads the team in scoring (12.9 ppg) and rebounding (7.6 rpg). He has scored in double figures in 12 straight games and has registered double-doubles in three of his last four games, giving him five on the season and 17 for his career. He is the 10th Billiken to be selected to the All-Academic team in the last seven years, which is the most among all A-10 institutions during that time.
This was the fourth All-Conference selection for Mitchell, who is second on the team in scoring at 10.2 points per game. After a foot injury sidelined him for the first 11 games of the season, he came on strong down the stretch, averaging 18 points per game, including a 19-point outburst in the season finale against La Salle.
Mitchell is the school’s leading active career scorer with 1,515 points and is the only player in SLU history to rank in the top 10 in career points, as well as the top five in steals and assists. Mitchell was named to the All-Rookie team as a freshman, second-team All-Conference as a sophomore and third-team All-Conference as a junior.
After starting in place of Mitchell in five of Saint Louis’ first nine contests, Jett has settled in as a force for the team off the bench, leading the team in both steals and assists. While it is rather difficult to support statistically, Jett regularly matches up against the opposition’s top scorer and has played a key role for the conference’s best scoring defense.
Saint Louis clinched the top seed in the upcoming A-10 tournament with its 78-54 victory over La Salle Saturday afternoon and will take on either Richmond or Charlotte in the quarterfinals on Friday.
“We’re not done yet,” Mitchell said following the La Salle game. “We still have to take care of business in Brooklyn. [We need to] stay humble and hungry.”
While it is still unknown who the Billikens’ next opponent will be, Crews said they are not without one to prepare for.
“Us. That’s the team we’re working on. Us,” he explained Monday afternoon. “We want to work on getting into our offense a little quicker…getting the ball into the post, working on post technique with our feet and hands.”
No. 8 Richmond and No. 9 Charlotte will kick off the tournament at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Thursday at 11 a.m. central. The winner will advance to take on SLU in the first quarterfinal game on Friday at 11 a.m. central—the game will be televised locally on KPLR Ch. 11, with Fox Sports Midwest carrying the out-of-market feed.
