Expect young Billikens to stay on recent roller coaster for rest of season
After a busy week, Saint Louis has already zipped through half of its non-conference schedule. Well, zipped might be overzealous. Roller-coastered might be more accurate, with more dips than climbs so far.
SLU is 4-2 with an impressive victory at Indiana State as the highlight and a home loss to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and a neutral-court beatdown by Mississippi State as low points.
The ups and downs should not be surprising. The Billikens lost a core of players who had won a game in three straight NCAA tournaments, leaving coach Jim Crews and his staff to break in six freshmen, a transfer junior and three sophomores who played little last year. Talk about a 180 in the type of players you're coaching.
"It's different," Crews said recently. "It's a different kind of fun, not ha-ha fun. It's interesting, it's challenging, it's good."
It's also a learning process -- for the coaches, players and those who follow the team. Here are five things we've learned so far:
-- Points have been difficult to come by. The Billikens have yet to break 70 points and their 59.0-point average ranks 13th of the 14 teams in the Atlantic 10. Austin McBroom, the leading returning scorer, tops the team with a 14.7-point average and is the only player averaging double figures. He is an excellent outside shooter when he can get an open shot but, at 5-foot-9, that's not easy.
Junior transfer Ash Yacoubou started the season with three double-figure scoring games but totaled only 16 points in the past three. Considered a 3-point threat, Yacoubou has made only one of 11 of his 3-point attempts for the season.
-- They miss Grandy Glaze. The senior forward won't improve the offense significantly, but SLU could benefit from his presence on the inside as well as his energy. The Billikens have been out-rebounded for the season, and it's gotten worse. They were out-rebounded 77-45 in the two games they played in Corpus Christi. Glaze has been out with a sore right shoulder but could return this week.
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-- The 12-man rotation might be the way. After playing just about everyone on scholarship for significant minutes in the first five games, Crews went with only nine players in a win Saturday over Bradley. For the first time, all five starters played 20 or more minutes. The continuity seemed to pay off as the game went on as the Billikens outscored Bradley 33-23 in the second half.
At least one Billiken, 6-9 freshman Brett Jolly, said he benefited from the extended court time. "It gave me more time to figure things out," he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch after scoring 10 points in 32 minutes. "It definitely helped me get into a flow and get a better feel for the game."
Interestingly, the players who were left out of the rotation Saturday -- John Manning, Tanner Lancona and freshman Davell Roby --- had been starting. Because it's hard to think they have lost their spots on a long-term basis, perhaps Crews is considering trying a nine-man rotation with the nine men changing from game to game. Crews said last week that he never has coached such a large rotation and he didn't have any idea when he might change. Translation: The situation is fluid.
-- The new guys have talent. They're certainly not "one-and-dones," but all six freshmen who have played considerable minutes have enjoyed stretches during which they're capable of playing Division I basketball for a winning team. Four of them -- Jolly, Miles Reynolds, Marcus Bartley and Malik Yarbrough -- already have put up a double-digit scoring game and one of the others, Roby, has shown a strong all-around floor game.
-- Steady improvement is not guaranteed. While it would be nice if all those freshmen got a bit better every time out, that's not how the game works. Inconsistency is a hallmark of inexperience.
Expect the Billikens to stay on a roller coaster all season, though the schedule will certainly have something to do with its direction. This week, for example, they play host to Division II Rockhurst on Tuesday night before traveling to No. 9 Wichita State to take on the undefeated Shockers on Saturday. Up and down they go.
You can follow Stan McNeal on Twitter at @StanMcNeal or email him at stanmcneal@gmail.com.
