This is how it was supposed to go, right? Back in October 2018, the Saint Louis University men’s basketball team was picked by the A-10 Conference coaches as the preseason number one team in the conference. Fast forward five months later, they are A-10 Conference tournament champions and are heading to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in the last five years. So, from being named preseason number one to now playing in the NCAA Tournament later this week, we must have reached this point rather easily with no surprises, right? In fact, it was the complete opposite.
SLU started off the season looking like the team everyone thought they would be. They won seven of their first nine games, including a 66-64 win over Seton Hall, a team who has also made their way to the NCAA Tournament this year. Later on, the Billikens narrowly lost on the road against Houston, falling 68-64 to a team who finished the season 31-3 and found themselves as a three seed in the tournament this year. Heading into conference play, SLU sat at 9-4. They would then start off A-10 play 5-0 to move on to 14-4 overall, once again looking like the team everyone touted them to be. Then came turmoil.
Carte’Are Gordon, the freshman Billiken center who was a four-star recruit and also attended high school locally, announced he was going to transfer. SLU would then lose five of their next six games to drop to 15-9 (6-5) on the year, including a 30-point blowout at the hands of Saint Joseph’s. SLU then would go 4-3 over their last seven games of the regular season to finish 19-12 (10-8), earning themselves a dainty six seed in the A-10 Tournament.
SLU would then travel nearly 1,000 miles to Brooklyn, New York for the A-10 tourney. Their first game would come against 11 seed Richmond, who had just squeaked by 14 seed Fordham, beating them 52-50 the night before. SLU found themselves down six at half, but behind 22 points from Hasahn French, the Billikens would make a run, outscoring Richmond 41-32 in the second half to win the game 71-68. For the quarterfinal round, SLU was pitted up against the three seed Dayton Flyers, who they had split the season series with. SLU once again was down at half, this time by just one. But behind a strong shooting performance by guard Tremaine Isabelle Jr. (24 points on 9/18 shooting, 4/7 3PT), the Billikens took over in the second half, ultimately beating Dayton 64-55.
Photo by Mick Lite.
SLU was now just two wins from salvaging their season and making it to the Big Dance. But first, two seed Davidson stood in their way. The Wildcats were 24-8 on the year and were one of the better three-point shooting teams in the country. Most had Davidson making the NCAA Tournament as an at-large bid if they at least reached the A-10 Tournament Championship Game. Neither team had great offense in the first half of this semifinal matchup, which led to a 29-29 tie at the half. Â What came next was unbelievable. SLU held Davidson to just 15 second half points and nearly scored 40 in the second half, winning the game in blowout fashion, 67-44. SLU held Davidson to 15/58 shooting on the day, which included over 20 missed threes.
Now all that was in SLU’s way for an NCAA Tournament bid was four seed St. Bonaventure, who had just taken down the eighth seed Rhode Island who earlier took down one seed VCU. SLU had a different leading scorer in each of their three previous tournament wins, and it seemed early on that the team’s offense was finally running out of gas. The Billikens missed their first 11 shots of the game and did not make their first shot until Tremaine Isabelle Jr. made a layup with just under 12 minutes to play in the first half. SLU had found themselves in a double-digit hole for a majority of the half, trailing by as many as 15. After trailing 34-19, the Billikens scored six unanswered points to end the half at 34-25, cutting the deficit to single digits.
Early on in the second half, SLU was finally knocking down shots and making it a game once again. Dion Wiley drilled a three with 11 minutes remaining to bring SLU within one at 41-40, capping off a 21-7 run. After trailing 46-42 with just under eight minutes to play, the Billikens would knock down five straight buckets to complete a 10-0 run and take a 54-46 lead with just under four to play. The Big Dance was in their sights.
SLU took a 54-48 lead with just under a minute and a half left. St. Bonaventure’s Osun Osunniyi would knock down two free throws to make it 54-50 with 1:15 left. But instead of waiting out the possession and playing defense, the Bonnies were going to play the fouling game, as SLU as a team is the second worst free throw shooting team in the country at 59.8%. Fred Thatch Jr. would make one of two freebies, upping the lead to five at 55-50. But Bonnies junior guard and former Jennings High School standout Courtney Stockard would drill a three with 58 seconds remaining to make it a two-point game.
Javon Bess was then fouled by Stockard which was his fifth, so now the Bonnies best shooter was out of the game. But Bess would miss the front end of a 1 and 1, giving St. Bonaventure a chance to either tie or take the lead with the score being 55-53 in favor of SLU. A timeout was called with 45 seconds remaining and the sequence that followed was bizarre. Dominick Welch would miss a three pointer but get his own rebound. Kyle Lofton then attempted a layup which was also off the mark. The ball went out of bounds but remained with St. Bonaventure. After a mad scramble, Bonnies guard Nelson Kaputo got a wide-open look for a potential game winning three in the corner with six seconds remaining. It seemed like the ball was going up in slow motion and was about to be a dagger in the heart of SLU’s tournament hopes. But the shot came up just short and Fred Thatch Jr. came up with the rebound and time expired, sending SLU to the NCAA Tournament. Take a look at the craziness that was the end of the game below:
SLU’s journey from being picked first in the preseason up to winning the A-10 Tournament was quite the wild ride. The job head coach Travis Ford has done in just three seasons at Saint Louis is nothing short of spectacular. Ford took over a team that went 11-21 two seasons in a row, finished 12-21 in his first season, got them to over .500 at 17-16 in 2017-18, and now in his third-year things have come full circle as SLU won the A-10 Tournament and is going dancing. This is the third different program Ford has taken to the NCAA Tournament (Eastern Kentucky and Oklahoma State), bolstering his resume once more with getting SLU there. SLU, a 13 seed in this year’s tournament squares off against four seed Virginia Tech this Friday, with tipoff scheduled at 8:57pm. The game can be seen on truTV. The SLU Billikens have defied odds in the second half of the season and do not be surprised if this squad does it again this weekend. Tune in, you might be surprised.
