The Saint Louis University Billikens have continued to win basketball games and gain national attention along the way.
Saint Louis U.’s winning streak reached a school-record 16 games after a two-game sweep of St. Joseph’s and LaSalle in Philadelphia last week. The Billikens are now 22-2 and ranked No. 12 in the latest Associated Press national poll. It represents SLU’s highest ranking in 49 years when the 1964-65 Bills were ranked as high as No. 4.
The 22-2 record also represents the best record in school history after 24 games. The Billikens are currently 9-0 in the Atlantic 10 Conference and are 8-0 in road games this season, which is the best in the country.
With each victory, the national basketball pundits are starting to take notice of the Rise of the Billikens, which is now a hashtag on Twitter. During last year’s dramatic 28-victory season, it was about a team playing for its fallen coach, Rick Majerus, who died last December and how then-interim coach Jim Crews guided the program through the storm to produce the best season in the program’s history.
This season, the attention has been on the team’s suffocating defense, its team-oriented offense and old-school, blue-collar sensibilities. The Billikens are a veteran, senior-laden team that embraces the grind of a 40-minute basketball game. They have gained more and more fans because they play basketball the right way. They play for each other on both ends of the court.
I love it.
When people outside of St. Louis ask me what makes the SLU defense so special, I tell them that I liken it to an episode of my favorite police show, Columbo, the old 1970s television show about a disheveled, seemingly unthreatening homicide detective played by the late Peter Falk. The show consisted of Columbo identifying who the murder suspect is early on, then spending the rest of the show meticulously putting together his case while pestering and badgering him until the worn-down suspect confesses to the crime at the end of the show just to get Columbo off of his back.
Our Billikens are the Lt. Columbos of college basketball. At first glance, they don’t have the appearance of a bunch of All-Americans. But their collective attention to detail and relentless approach is what sets them apart from the rest. That is what the Billikens do to opponents on defense. They locate weaknesses, then just nag, bother and harass opposing teams into utter submission. They stay in your business and make each possession a grind to the point where you just say, “Here, take the ball, just get away from me!”
It’s beautiful to watch.
On Saturday, SLU will be hosting its biggest game of the year when Atlantic 10 pre-season favorite VCU comes to town. It will be a battle of the top two teams in the conference in front of a sellout crowd. Like SLU, VCU relies on its defense, only it is their relentless full-court pressure defense that is labeled “Havoc.” It should be quite an electric atmosphere at the Chaifetz Arena when these two A-10 giants collide.
I cannot wait.
