It’s easy to say the worst is behind SLU after the tough five-game set of games they just had, but relief may not come until after Saturday’s game with Savannah State. SSU is 5-2, with losses coming to BCS schools Clemson and Michigan (on the road). SSU led Michigan by 20 at the half before the Wolverines came back to win in overtime. They’re coming off a win, at home, over Bowling Green, a team to picked to finish in the middle of the pack in the MAC. (OK, they lost to Clemson by 32.) So SSU isn’t quite the patsy some other upcoming teams are. Their stats are here.

“They’re a very athletic, quick team, a deep team,” SLU coach Rick Majerus said. “They play 10, 11 players every game, a nice mix of vets and good athletes. They just beat Bowling Green and took Michigan to overtime. They’re a very good, terrific defensive team and they have a good press, They have 10 guys and one guy is better than the next.”

Savannah isn’t a terribly tall team — only one guy who gets significant minutes is taller than 6-7, and he gets just eight minutes a game. (”Conklin-sized” is how Majerus called them.) Smaller, faster teams have been just as much trouble for SLU as big teams.

SLU is now home for three weeks, and while they have to do some juggling around finals, which start Dec. 10 and run a week, they don’t have to go anywhere. But after playing SIUC on Tuesday, the one thing Majerus wants most, time, is still missing. The team took Wednesday off and had two days of practice before this game. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but once finals are over, the time restrictions on practice are off until the next semester begins. So Majerus can have them practice eight hours a day if he wants.

(On Wednesday, Majerus got together with his freshmen to talk about things other than basketball. Majerus termed his Wednesday gathering “a nice meal,” quickly adding the meal was just sandwiches, but the talk was nice.)

Despite his team’s having gone 0-3 on the road — statistical aside: a Majerus-coached college team has never lost four straight games — he thought his team showed progress at the end. “They were excrucatingly painful,” he said. “We played good defense at Southern Illinois. We did a good job defensively, but we have issues with scoring, maturity and fatigue. … They’re doing good. The record might not be as good as last year, but we might be better than last year. We understand what the situation is. I like our freshmen, I like the class coming in. It will take us three years to get to 13 scholarship players. Right now we’re playing with nine. There’s nothing I can do about that, unless we want to panic. We’ve worked hard. The coaches have done a good job of looking at players. We’re happy with the freshman class. We have no sophomore or junior class.”

At least home has been good to SLU. They’re 2-1 and very nearly 3-0 in Chaifetz.

Said Kevin Lisch: ”It will be nice to go back home and play in our new arena. We definitely learned some things on this trip. We’ve definitely got to get better.”

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Assistant coach Chris Harriman should be back on the bench on Saturday. Eagle-eyed fans may have noticed he wasn’t on hand for the Detroit and Carbondale games. He was on a recruiting trip in Australia. Those apparently take some time.