Yesterday, Coach Jim Crews and his young Billiken squad traveled to the Bahamas to play in a couple of preseason exhibition games. The pure excitement of the Billiken squad in the Bahamas was matched by hard work and total dedication to getting better as a team.
Last night, Coach Jim Crews had a special surprise for last year walk-on guard Aaron Hines. He rewarded Hines’s hard work and commitment to the program with an athletic scholarship in front of his teammates and coach staff (Video below). Hines, a former Parkway North athlete, averaged 19.9 points per game as a senior. Hines joined as a walk-on last season after playing in 24 games for John Wood Community College in Quincy, Illinois. [embedplusvideo height=”375″ width=”615″ editlink=”http://bit.ly/1KWJnw0″ standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/8LaCXipZdJ8?fs=1&vq=hd720″ vars=”ytid=8LaCXipZdJ8&width=615&height=375&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=1&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=¬es=” id=”ep7599″ /]
Tonight, the Billikens played in an exhibition game against the Atlantis All-Stars. In these exhibition games, there are 4 quarters of 10 minutes each, which is a slight change to the normal two halves of 20 minutes games during the regular college season. At halftime, the Billikens led the All-Stars, 43-37. Sophomore Davell Roby led the Billikens with 11 points. Every scholarship player played in the game except sophomore Marcus Bartley, who was injured and not available for this trip. In the second half, the teams were neck and neck until the Bills were able to pull away late leading to a final score of 81-73.
The Billikens were led in scoring by sophomore Davell Roby who finished with 20 points. Junior Mike Crawford also added 16 points. Sophomore Miles Reynolds contributed 13 points. Freshman newcomer Matt Nuefeld added 6 points of his own. The Billikens look to build on the momentum from tonight’s win against their next opponent. The Billikens are in the Bahamas to play three exhibition games. As mentioned above, SLU arrived Friday and will spend the next six days at the Atlantis Paradise Island Resort.