ST. LOUIS -- Exactly 100 years ago, Saint Louis University played its first basketball game, and what a game it was. SLU beat a team called Company E 72-2, a margin so lopsided the school's press release includes "(not a typo)" after the score.
Since their debut on Jan. 14, 1915, the Billikens have enjoyed a rich history of hoops. The first three decades did not bring a lot of success, but in the second half of the 1940s the program started to take off. With Easy Ed Macauley leading the way, SLU won the NIT Championship in its first appearance, in 1948. The Billikens have gone on to play in 14 other NITs, many of those when it was basketball's marquee event, as well as nine NCAA Tournaments. They entered this season as one of 10 schools to have won a tournament game in each of the past three years.
SLU will celebrate its past Wednesday night by announcing the all-time Billikens team at halftime of its Atlantic 10 game against Duquesne at Chaifetz Arena. The selections, based on online voting over the past several weeks, include 16 players and three coaches. They will be recognized when the Billikens host La Salle on Feb. 22.
Chances are pretty strong that just about everyone named to the all-time team will have been seen by Bill Slattery, Bob Ramsey and/or Earl Austin Jr., a trio that has watched as much Billiken ball as anyone.
Slattery played point guard for SLU in the first half of the 1950s and has remained close to the school. For the past 23 seasons he has led an honorary captain's program that recognizes seriously ill children and their families before every home game. When he decided against having a family drive to the arena for a game played during the Ferguson unrest last fall, it was only the third time he had not hosted an honorary captain.
Ramsey is in his 29th season as SLU's radio play-by-play man, a job he has handled so well that he was named to the Billikens' Hall of Fame in 2008, 10 years after Slattery was so honored.
Austin is a St. Louis hoops icon who has been Ramsey's radio sidekick for the past 24 years and has been following SLU since the early 1980s. Austin was a star player at Lindenwood at the time -- his jersey was retired in 2013 -- but still was drawn to SLU as the program was being revitalized by an influx of local talent.
There can be few who would be better to talk Billikens basketball than these three, which is what I did this week. While they don't go back the entire century, they have the past five-plus decades covered.
Check out this photo gallery of the first 100 years of SLU hoops.
Any discussion about SLU basketball should start with Macauley, who has to be considered the Billikens' all-time greatest player (though the all-time team will not make such distinctions). Macauley not only led SLU to its only national championship -- the '48 NIT -- but also was named the Associated Press Player of the Year in 1949, enjoyed 10 seasons as a star in the NBA and made the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1960.
"He was without a doubt an icon. Everybody tried to mimic his hook shot, except me. I had enough problems hitting a layup," says Slattery, who was playing at Normandy High around the time Macauley was leading SLU.
Macauley's success made the Billikens a top attraction in town and would help Slattery decide where to play in college.
"Back then, it was Cardinals baseball in the summer, Saint Louis U basketball in the winter," he says.
Among the schools that recruited Slattery after he had led Normandy to a state title was Missouri, coached then by Wilbur Stalcup. When Slattery called to inform Stalcup that he would be attending Saint Louis, the Tigers coach asked, "Bill, you think you can play with those big guys down there?"
The star during part of Slattery's time on the team was Dick Boushka, who would become one of SLU's six players to be named an All-American. Boushka averaged 19.2 points per game during his four seasons for the Billikens, second-best in school history.
It was during this era when SLU became a darling of New York. Coached by Eddie Hickey, the Billikens played a run-and-shoot game that made them a crowd favorite at Madison Square Garden. Slattery recalls a game against Connecticut in the old Madison Square Garden when SLU scored a record 70 points in the first half on the way to a victory in which he says both teams topped triple digits.
"Eddie Hickey was a disciple of the fast break," Slattery says. "It was a passing fast break. They called it patty-cake ball because the ball never hit the floor."
SLU proved to be such an attraction that Slattery remembers Ned Irish, who ran the Garden, meeting the team at the airport and ushering it downtown.
The program has seen plenty of ups and downs since then, though rarely has the excitement been greater than on Dec. 30, 1993. In Charlie Spoonhour's second season as coach, the Billikens were much improved but still playing before crowds sparse enough at the old Checkerdome that canvas tarps were used to cover up the cheap seats.
But with SLU off to a 7-0 start and an undefeated Southern Illinois team visiting, the game turned into an event. The walk-up crowd was so huge that traffic was backed up and tip-off was delayed.
"We're sitting there, waiting and waiting," Ramsey says. "Finally, they come over and tell us what is happening. At one point, I look up to the rafters and ushers are taking the canvas off those seats. I'll never forget that awesome feeling. Spoon had brought the program back. To see that happen was really, really neat."
The next season, SLU won its first NCAA Tournament game when it beat Minnesota 64-61 in a first-round game in Baltimore. "To see all the players jump on each other on the floor in a big dog pile was neat, too," Ramsey says.
Both Ramsey and Austin cite a game at Marquette in January 1998 as one of their most memorable. Though freshman star Larry Hughes had scored more than 30 points in his previous two games, Marquette coach Mike Deane was quoted in the morning papers as saying his team would employ no special defenses to slow the Billikens' sharpshooter.
Bad strategy. Hughes went for 40 and the Billikens won 71-62.
"You could tell he took it personally," Ramsey says. "He just exploded. They'd come out on him and he'd step back and shoot. They'd come out further and he would step out further. It was just a ridiculous performance."
"Maybe the most incredible individual performance I have broadcast," Austin adds.
FOX Sports Midwest coverage of the Duquesne-SLU game begins at 7 p.m.
Austin talks about the night in 2004 when SLU upset a No. 2-ranked Louisville team that had been riding a 17-game winning streak. The Cardinals led by seven with about two minutes to go before SLU's Marque Perry went to work.
"He took the game over, scored the last eight points and we won by one (59-58)," Austin says. "They still play that highlight sometimes just to mess with me. While Rammer is doing his thing, I'm literally hyperventilating."
The 2000 "miracle in Memphis" also holds a special place in the memories of both announcers, partly for personal reasons. The Billikens entered the Conference USA tournament as the ninth seed in Lorenzo Romar's first season as coach only to steal the championship with four straight victories, including a 68-58 defeat of a Cincinnati team ranked No. 1 in the nation.
What made the title game even more memorable came afterward, though. As the two announcers were watching the Billikens cut down the nets, Romar motioned for them to take a turn on the ladder. Both men call it a career highlight.
"To let us share in that sacred moment was probably the most special moment for me in my 24 years," Austin says. "I still have a piece of that net somewhere."
It was a special memory for the two in a century of memorable moments for Saint Louis University.
You can follow Stan McNeal on Twitter at @StanMcNeal or email him at stanmcneal@gmail.com.
