03.02.2008 12:02 am

SLU hates St. Bonaventure

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

I quit.

I know the A-10 is unpredictable, but the SLU-St. Bonaventure game on Saturday should have been the most predictable game of the weekend. (Though, as I think I warned in an earlier post, SLU needed to take care of business against St. Bonaventure, which it didn’t.)

SLU has played the Bonnies three times in the A-10. The first time, at Scottrade, they won on a 3-point shot by Kevin Lisch that, as I watched it in real time, looked like a 2. (The replays of the shot didn’t show Lisch’s foot, which looked to me to be on the line.) SBU had a good look on a prayer on the buzzer after Danny Brown mishandled his defensive assignment but the shot missed. Then last year, well, I think everyone here remembers last year. And this year, with a 20-point loss, at home, to the worst team in the league.

Stunning, even in an unpredictable A-10 season.

SLU’s 34.7 percent shooting was its worst since the GW game. It was the fourth time this season SLU had shot better on 3’s (42.1) than overall.

SBU was the sixth SLU opponent to shoot 50 percent or better from the field. Only Kent State (58.3) and Dayton (53.3 at Dayton) shot better. At 66.7, only Kent State (1.000) shot better on 3’s than SBU, but Kent State took only 3 3’s.

Tommie Liddell has tried 12 shots in each of his past four games. How many he’s made: 6, 5, 4, 2.

The last time Lisch played in a game he didn’t start was the Gonzaga game his freshman season. Danny Brown got the nod on Senior Day. Brown’s last start was last season against La Salle after Liddell was late for the pregame meeting.

Barry Eberhardt didn’t score in his second straight game.

Luke Meyer had eight rebounds, giving him an average of 9.5 in the past two games.

Dwayne Polk made his first free throw since Jan. 26, though he’s gone to the line just twice since then. Considering the kind of shots he takes — uncontested outside shots or layups in transition – you wouldn’t expect him to get fouled much.

Husak took just one shot, a putback of a miss. You have to go back to the start of the season, against Pacific, to find a game where he took only one shot. He also had just two rebounds, his fewest since the second Dayton game.

Adam Knollmeyer played two minutes and scored two points, his layin right before the first half buzzer.

The referees were none too pleased when the Scottrade Center board showed a replay of a charging call on Kevin Lisch. They stopped the game to tell the scorer’s table to relay the word not to do it again. A slow button on the Tivo system was the culprit.

Majerus didn’t really want to talk after the game. From his opening comments to his “Thank you very much,” he spoke for 59 seconds:

His opening comments: “St. Bonaventure played an excellent game. They deserved to win, they were outstanding, I give them a lot of credit.”A question about whether this was going to be a tough game because of the quick turnaround from the St. Joseph’s win: “I don’t know. You’re 20 years old. You should enjoy playing.”

A question about if the offense’s struggles stemmed from the defense: “St. Bonaventure did a wonderful job, terrific job, really happy for them.”

A question about the trouble getting the ball inside: “I’ll deal you straight here. It’s senior night, I’m not going to say antying bad about my team or my players. I lilke those kids, they’re great kids, they tried hard, you are who you are in life. Thank you very much.”

The shortness of that session did allow me to get down the hall to talk to St. Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt:

“We played the best we’ve played since the Duquesne game. We defended the best we’ve defended, we did a good job on the backboard and we made some shots. We wanted to get the ball inside to our big guys when they go small because Lee is a mismatch problem, I thought our guys saw that and took advantage of it.”On their defense: “We did a great job. When Liddell and Lisch play well, they’re hard to beat, but when one of them struggles, they’re a team that’s beatable. We did a great job on Liddell, we kept him in front of us. He missed some shots, but at the same time, we might have had something to do with it. They’re not a great shooting team. If you can keep them in front of you, keep them out of the paint, you can have some success. When they did get in the paint, they missed some shots, that always helps. It makes you look better.”

I asked Tyler Relph if Saturday’s game reminded him of last year’s game: “No, actually, two years ago. We came here and should have won but we made a couple dumb plays down the stretch. I knew it was going to be a game we could compete in because I don’t think they’re more athletic than us. … We hit shots and they played good defense. We hit some contested shots, and when you do that, you’re going to win.”

Had he ever had a game like that, going 6 for 6 on 3’s? “No. The funny thing is I couldn’t hit a shot in warmups. I don’t know what it was, but they were going down. It happens some times.”

From new AD Chris May, in his first day on the job: “It’s all part of the process.”

May didn’t take part in the Senior Day presentations because he doesn’t really know any of the players. Senior Associate Athletic Director Doug McIlhagga was out there, along with Assistant AD for compliance Janet Oberle.

SLU, as best as I can tell, has not quite clinched a spot in the A-10 tournament, but a pretty specific list of things needs to happen for SLU not to make it. To wit:

SLU loses to Duquesne

Duquesne beats SLU and Temple and loses to Charlotte

Fordham beats Richmond and SBU

GW beats Charlotte and UMass

Dayton splits its games with SBU and St. Joe’s; it doesn’t matter which, but they can’t go 2-0 or 0-2.

Charlotte beats Duquesne, loses to GW and RI.

If that were to happen, SLU, Duquesne, Fordham, GW, Dayton and Charlotte would all be 7-9 and SLU would have the worst record on the tiebreaker. But if Dayton were to sweep its last two games, it wouldn’t be in the tiebreaker and then Charlotte would be the odd team out.

There’s another combination which starts with Duquesne beating Charlotte on Sunday, and in a six-way tie between SLU, Fordham, GW, Dayton, Charlotte and Rhode Island, SLU again is 13th. Again, however, if Dayton isn’t in the tie, SLU moves on.

In all likelihood, SLU will secure its spot on Wednesday if Richmond beats Fordham or on Thursday if GW loses at Charlotte.

Going the other way, if SLU beats Duquesne (why not?) and finishes 8-8, I don’t think it can do better than tied for fourth and I don’t think the combination of games left or the tiebreakers will even allow that. 8-8 probably gets you the No. 7 seed, at best, which which is infinitely better than the No. 8 seed, because the No. 8 (or 9) gets Xavier in the second round. To avoid Xavier, your first choices are seeds 7, 10, 6 and 11, followed by 5 and 12, and then 8 and 9.

This was SLU’s ~~seventh~~ sixth-worst loss at Scottrade, with the opponent’s won-loss record:

29 — SIUC in 96/97 (3-2)

27 — Cincinnati in 97/98 (17-7)

27 — Louisville in 03/04 (19-7)

~~22 — Butler in 02/03 (8-0)~~ (It’s listed in the media guide as a home game, but it was at Butler. Thanks for the catch Tony.)

21 — North Carolina in 06/07 (10-1)

21 — UMKC in 96/97 (2-3)

20 — St. Bonaventure on Saturday (8-20)

Normally, I’d give you the A-10 playoffs, if the season ended today, but St. Joe’s and Temple are tied for second and haven’t played yet, so we can’t break that tie. But …

Here’s what it looks like if St. Joe’s wins:

1 XAVIER vs. winner of 8 Rhode Island vs. 9 Charlotte or Duquesne; 4 La Salle vs. winner of 5 Richmond vs. 12 Fordham; 2 St. Joe’s vs. winner of 7 SLU vs. 10 Charlotte or Duquesne; 3 Temple vs. winner of 6 UMass vs. 11 Dayton.

If Temple wins:

1 XAVIER vs. winner of 8 Rhode Island vs. 9 Charlotte or Duquesne; 4 La Salle vs. winner of 5 UMass vs. 12 Fordham; 2 Temple vs. winner of 7 SLU vs. 10 Charlotte or Duquesne; 3 St. Joe’s vs. winner of 6 Richmond vs. 11 Dayton.