A10 Plus: Billikens Raising Eyebrows again with Majerus
January 27th, 2012
By: Doug Tifft
A high-water mark on the banks of the Mississippi
Nearly five years ago, Saint Louis University athletic director Cheryl Levick raised some eyebrows in the college basketball world by announcing she was hiring Rick Majerus, at the time best known for his fortunes while coaching at Utah.
Majerus assumed a struggling SLU program, seemingly with a bright future in a 10,600-seat Chaifetz Arena coming up on campus, but also crammed into a tough recruiting area, attempting to battle Big Ten and Big XII programs for talent.
Optimism was tepid among SLU fans—which was more than could be said for much of the Brad Soderberg era.
Now, despite some empty seats in an arena with the paint barely dried, that optimism is bearing its most fruit yet.
With a 73-68 win in Cincinnati over Xavier on Wednesday night, Majerus’ men took their biggest win of the season, and likely the biggest win since 71-66 upset at Dayton in the regular season finale in 2009-10.
SLU’s resume has some holes, as there were missed opportunities against likely Tournament teams in a four-point loss at Mountain West contender New Mexico and single-digit losses to Temple and Dayton.
The Billikens have not received any favors from the teams they beat in the non-conference, either, with Washington, Oklahoma and Villanova riding out rebuilding seasons.
Still, there was enough momentum on the river for the Billikens’ latest win to grab headlines, marking the high-water mark of Majerus’ five-year tenure.
And it has been a bit of journey to get there.
Majerus took over a program that Soderberg left with decent pieces in Tommie Lidell and Kevin Lisch. Majerus molded the guards into his relatively plodding system to extract a 34-29 record in his first two years on the job, working in relative obscurity of an empty off-campus arena.
Next the youth movement came to the spotlight with sophomores
Kwamain Mitchell, Willie Reed, Brian Conklin and Christian
Salecich, followed by the two steps backward from Mitchell and
Reed’s suspension related to an off-court incident after the
2009-10 season.
Along the way Majerus began barking up new trees on the recruiting trail, getting creative to avoid going head-to-head with Missouri, Illinois and even some Missouri Valley powers. It has allowed SLU to add depth in odd ways—a transfer from a woebegone Toledo program, a Kiwi frontcourt, a backup 7-footer from Virginia and some role players with large chips on their shoulders.
All of it has brought this team to the precipice of a Tournament berth, with a chance to control its own destiny with only a 10-game run of games it should logically be favored in standing between SLU and a conference title.
Still, as his players talked jubilantly about SLU’s progression toward the top of the league, and the first win by an A-10 opponent in Cintas Center since 2006, Majerus was reigning in the celebration.
"As soon as they count it for two, then it's a more significant win," Majerus said. "Consistency throughout is very important… This is all for naught if we lose something at home."
Spoken like a man who has spent five years building a program that he knows could take two more steps backward with one bad week.
But for now, Majerus has his Billikens on a path toward a March run. And that would be something to raise some eyebrows.
Changing Roles
Xavier center Kenny Frease has taken criticism this season, as his numbers have dropped across the board—scoring, rebounding, field goal percentages and minutes played.
While Frease was expected to be the key cog for Xavier inside this season, balancing the court with Mark Lyons and Tu Holloway on the perimeter, part of his drop-off may be due to his running mates.
In 2010-11, Frease was playing alongside Jamel McLean, a 6-foot-8 burly power forward often charged with defending the opposing team’s best post threat.
This season Frease became, by default, Xavier’s best interior defender, with slightly undersized power forwards Andre Walker and Travis Taylor checking in alongside him.
That means Frease is left defending opposing team’s best bigs like Dayton’s Matt Kavanaugh or Gonzaga’s Robert Sacre.
The matchups leave Frease vulnerable to exposure on some of his weaknesses—which as of late have come in defending ball screens, most notably against Dayton, when Frease logged 16 minutes despite only carrying three fouls, and Saint Louis, when Frease played 18 minutes off the bench.
The defensive lapses have led to a harsh word or 20 from Xavier head coach Chris Mack, often delivered while Frease is seated next to an assistant coach, watching Walker or Jeff Robinson play the five spot.
So while it is often true that Frease is the genesis of many of Xavier’s problems on the interior, the issue that will likely cut into the 7-foot senior’s paycheck in eight months began in March, when McLean took off a Xavier uniform for the last time.
Starting Low
For the better part of a month, the A-10 title race has mirrored the Republican presidential nomination race, with the flavor of the week rising to spotlight after a sterling performance, then fading when a troubling flaw is revealed.
This past week, Dayton went through the whole cycle in about 96 hours.
There was the win over Xavier in front of a packed UD Arena on Saturday, bold predictions of first-year head coach Archie Miller merely picking up his A-10 Coach of the Year title on his way to a ceremony to be named National Coach of the Year and rampant posturing over a top-half seeding in March.
It came down quickly with a sound road defeat at Saint Joseph’s on Wednesday night, as cold shooting and suspect defensive play conspired to doom the Flyers.
While a large part of the loss was merely C.J. Aiken and Ronald Roberts’ latest step in their maturation process, part of it was SJU coach Phil Martelli diagnosing and attacking UD’s biggest strength—the pick-and-roll.
A large part of the pick-and-roll’s effectiveness has come not just from Flyer point guard Kevin Dillard’s ability to penetrate or pass out of the pick-and-roll, but his ability to initiate the offense from an advantageous point on the court.
Most pick-and-roll offenses come in two flavors—side or top. Dayton runs bits of both, but is effective with the play mostly because it begins at or inside the three-point line.
At times against Xavier, when its pick-and-roll was at its most effective this season, Dayton was beginning the play within 20-feet of the basket, making the Musketeer post players decide between an aggressive hedge or a challenging retreat to their own man.
Such a predicament puts a great deal of stress on the three help defenders, and often gets wings Paul Williams and Chris Johnson open looks from the perimeter.
In many ways, St. Joe’s offered some ideal personnel to counter UD’s pick-and-roll, with agile, lengthy post defenders hedging and Aiken correcting mistakes on the back end.
Dillard was still able to set up jumpers, which did not fall, helping to spell doom on Wednesday night.
At 4-2, UD is still in the race, though. And in the final six weeks of the season, how low it is able to get will go a long way toward determining how high it can go.
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Doug Tifft's weekly column appears here each and every Friday of the Atlantic 10 season. Check back on Monday for Ian Nolan's A10 Conference Notebook.
Photos courtesy of Saint Louis Sports Information Department.
