The Saint Louis Billikens were the opposite of saints on Thursday night up there in Buffalo, where the Billikens diabolically disassembled their overwhelmed opponent from Georgia in a variety of vicious ways.
And while the highly likable players who suit up for SLU are gentlemen of good character, these mild-mannered gentlemen transformed into demons, clawing the Bulldogs with malice aforethought to claim the seventh NCAA Tournament victory in program history.
At the peak of their frenzy, SLU led by 40 points with 4 minutes and 17 seconds remaining in a stunningly precise and clinical liquidation of a Power Conference team that was stripped of its power.
SEC?
In this case the iconic conference acronym stood for something else.
SEC …
SLU Entirely Conquered.
To the Billikens, it just meant more.
The loud final score was 102 to 77. The final takeaway was shock and awe. Forgive me for my sin, but I did not think St. Louis would win this first-round game.
The problem for Georgia? They didn’t think SLU could win this game, either. And it showed. Some of UGA’s post-game comments were rare for the level of candor.
Coach Mike White: “Disappointed in our effort starting with myself. Obviously, we weren't very prepared to compete at the level that I thought we would. Did not see this coming.”
Georgia guard Jeremiah Wilkinson: “I don't know exactly what it was in the locker room, like what happened, but we weren't ready to play, and we didn't act like we wanted to be here. You're not going to win a game in the NCAA Tournament when the other team wants to be here and we don't want to be here.”
Coach White: “Just being honest with you. I did not see that coming. I expected to win the game.”
Wilkinson: “I mean, we just didn't play hard at all. Turnovers, we're not getting back. As a team, (SLU) got out and ran on us, and we couldn't get rebounds, and they went and got rebounds. We were the bigger team today, so we have no excuse for that.”
Coach White: “You know, I can't dodge that. We played with less effort than we've played in any game this season. It's not even close. Not even close.”
Wilkinson: “We were probably the more athletic team, so you know, there's no excuse for what happened today. Really it's just -- I don't even know what happened.”
Coach White: “We anticipated coming into this one against a team that … really, Saint Louis hasn't been playing great at the end of the season … they put a lot together today and played really well.”
The Coach was right. Saint Louis didn’t look sharp – not nearly enough of the time – over their previous eight games, going 4-4. The four defeats were simple to diagnose: too many careless turnovers, diminished physicality, defensive lapses, and fluctuating confidence. The Billikens retched away a big lead over Dayton and got booted out of the Atlantic 10 tournament semifinals.
I won’t be a phony here; I thought SLU was cooked. Headed for a one-and-done finish after receiving an at-large invitation to the NCAA’s annual ball.
God bless you, Robbie Avila. Thank you for everything. Your time at SLU was special. A 28-win season, a regular-season conference title, and a return to The Tournament? Helluva season, Billikens. Awesome job, Coach Josh Schertz. Very happy that you’re staying.
Even the most loyal and optimistic SLU fans were holding at least some doubt about the Billikens’ viability going in. They haven’t played to their best form, not consistently, for a quite a while.
I know this much is true: there wasn’t a single person out there who saw this coming: Saint Louis 100, Georgia 60 with just 252 seconds of game clock to go? No way.
Georgia didn’t see this coming either. So this all turned out perfectly. The Billikens were a searing blue-streak flame that sped the night away. They shot out the lights. They left the Dawgs physically and emotionally depleted, totally depressed and resoundingly defeated.
Georgia was tangled up in blue and didn’t know what to do. So they quit.
Because there was some anxiety going into this one, Saint Louis fans were rewarded with the extra pleasure of witnessing a truly extraordinary performance. A spectacle.
Has any Saint Louis U team dazzled and shined to this magnitude on the NCAA tournament stage? No. This was the one. This is at the top of the list.
SLU had an outstanding first half, leading by 17 at the break. But it was still too soon to call it a knockout. Georgia surely would rally and at least put up a fight. But … mercy … the Billikens crushed those hopes by charging into the second half on a startling 18-0 blitz that we’ll always remember. No team plays perfect basketball, but this was a dream sequence.
Almost surreal. And convincing. A combination of ruthlessness and joy. This was a display of what this program can be. This was for the SLU fans who have been faithful and patient and waiting for such a memorable scene to watch and savor.
The Billikens have been struggling to keep leads in games, but if Georgia had any real thoughts of a comeback … well, here comes the bloody lip, the busted nose, the aching jaw. The Billikens forcibly removed those thoughts from Georgia’s mind.
“Generally, if you can go out and really throw a punch there to start the second half, you can kind of, you know, knock them out,” Schertz said, postgame. “If they're able to come and throw the first punch and cut it to 10, 9 (points) you know, now it's a game and they get their confidence back. We just talked about (how) the first five minutes would set the tone for what the second half would look like.”
OK, let’s get a little weird.
Late Thursday, I got a text from a friend.
A SLU fan.
“Spatial dominance!” That was his message.
What?
“Spatial dominance.”
I had to look it up.
“In sports, spatial dominance refers to a team or player’s ability to control key areas of the playing surface, effectively ‘owning’ more high-value space than their opponent. While it doesn't always guarantee a win, it is a primary indicator of tactical superiority.”
Yeah. There ya go.
That’s what SLU did to Georgia.
Get the hell out, this is our house, even though we’re in Buffalo. Basically, SLU controlled every inch of the competitive space and – not to mention the head space – and evicted Georgia. A total ejection. The Blue just choked the Dawgs off and ran ‘em outta there. Hey, this spatial dominance is pretty cool; makes the Billikens sound like something out of Marvel. Maybe “Quicksilver.”
The key numbers in SLU’s numbing of Georgia were absolutely ridiculous. I looked at them on Friday morning while having my first coffee – and I really did laugh out loud.
+ The Billikens made 58.3 percent of their shots from the floor.
+ On two-point shots, they bottomed 33 out of 44 for a 75% shooting percentage.
+ SLU swarmed for 40 shots at the rim, making 31, for a dandy nifty little success rate of 77.5 percent.
+ The average distance on SLU’s two-point baskets was 3 feet, 4 inches. That was even lower than their season average of 3 feet, 8 inches.
+ SLU had 66 points in the paint. UGA had 28. That’s a difference of 38 points.
+ SLU: 27 layups and 3 dunks. Georgia: 14 layups and no dunks.
+ No dunks by Georgia? Heading into the NCAA Tournament, UGA’s “Dunkyard Dawgs" led the nation in percentage of field goals that came on dunks, at 19%. They had ZERO dunks on Saint Louis.
+ SLU had a 5-0 run near the end of the first half and scored the first 18 points of the second half. During this 23-0 assault, the Billikens made 11 consecutive baskets at the rim.
+ Dion Brown led the bull rush, scoring all of his 18 points in this game on layups and dunks. He made 9 of 10 shots on the night.
+ Georgia led the nation with 20 fast-break points per game this season – but got away with just 15 fast-break points against SLU. The Billikens had 12 fast-break points, and that gap was smaller than expected. And most of UGA’s 15 fast-break points were scored during the hopeless despair of garbage time.
+ In other words, the Billikens out-ran the Dawgs, and out-dunked the Dawgs, and neutered the Dawgs in the territorial battle at the rim. Seriously: no one, and I mean no one, envisioned this.
+ SLU assisted on 27 of its 42 made baskets, or 64.2% Georgia had only nine assists – and a 36% assist rate – in the game.
+ Nine Billikens scored points against UGA, with the individual totals ranging from 7 to 18 points.
+ Saint Louis had the lead for 99 percent of the 40 minutes. UGA never led.
+ SLU missed 12 of 15 three-point shots in the first half and still led by 17 at the break. But in the second half the Billikens hit the target on 6 of their 13 three-pointers. As if to prove yet another point. (Y’all ain’t stopping nothing for 40 minutes straight. So now watch us make some threes.)
+ As you probably know by now, the 102 points were the most scored by SLU in an NCAA Tournament game.
+ SLU’s 29 wins are the most in a season in program history.
+ In his NCAA Tournament debut, Robbie Avila had his usual all-around mix of 12 points, 5 rebounds 5 assists, two blocks, and a steal. His offensive efficiency rating in the win was 23 percent above average.
+ In fact, all nine Billikens who played at least 11 minutes in this game finished with an above-average efficiency rating.
+ I think that Bob Ramsey and Earl Austin Jr. made the leap over the broadcast table to score a couple points, but I could be wrong, and I shall check the box score.
Saint Louis put on a fantastic show. Georgia evidently expected some sort of slow, steady, half-court, small-ball approach by the Billikens.
Instead SLU turned this thing into a NASCAR race in a bold attempt to beat the Bulldogs at their own, preferred style. Vroom! Vroom! But the Billikens had the faster car. By far. The SLU car lapped the red car.
If I may mix metaphors here by summoning another sports reference that applied to a game with an SEC team in the competition …
SLU had no problem moving the ball into the red zone to repeatedly cash in for points and run up the score on Georgia’s SEC defense.
UGA’s basketball team couldn’t stop these Billikens, Georgia had no answers. So this was maybe a job for Georgia football coach Kirby Smart, but he wouldn’t have shut them down either. These saints turned into demons, and Georgia never recovered.
UP NEXT FOR THE BILLIKENS
No. 1 seed Michigan. Saturday’s tip-off is 11:15 am STL time, so make sure to coffee up. To no one’s surprise, the Wolverines are installed as a 12 and ½ point favorite over the Billikens. At KenPom, Michigan is ranked 3rd on the list of tournament teams most likely to make the Final Four and win the championship:
Duke: 50% Final 4 … 17.7% national champ
Arizona: 45.5% Final 4 … 16.1% champ
Michigan: 44.2% Final 4 … 15.6% champ
Florida: 30.4% Final 4 … 9.4% champ
The next four in order are Houston, Illinois, Purdue and Iowa State.
Ken Pomeroy’s model gives SLU a 13 percent chance to pull an upset and crack a big section of the bracket. The projected final score at KenPom is Michigan over Saint Louis, 87-74.
In case you’re wondering – and underdog stuff is fun – here are SLU chances the rest of the way: 14% shot to beat Michigan, 4.8% possibility to reach the Elite 8, and a 1.4% glimmer of reaching the last four.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015. Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach. Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst. In his career as a beatwriter and columnist, Bernie covered Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches Joe Gibbs, Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Dick Vermeil on a daily basis.
Bernie has covered and written about many great St. Louis sports team athletes including Albert Pujols, Kurt Warner, Brett Hull, Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, Jim Edmonds, Marshall Faulk, Scott Rolen, Mark McGwire, Orlando Pace, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Al MacInnis, Brian Sutter, Bernie Federko, Chris Pronger, Dan Dierdorf, Jackie Smith and Aeneas Williams. Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues, Saint Louis U, and Mizzou football and basketball. Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STL Sports Central, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.