No practice for SLU today. Last year, it became a familiar refrain from Rick Majerus to talk about how bad travel was for SLU in the Atlantic 10. After the third or fourth time he started telling me about it, I stopped him and said, “Rick, I make these trips too. You don’t have to tell me how bad they are.” (For the record, in part because of weather and fewer flights out of St. Louis, last year was the worst year for travel I’ve ever seen.)

The last two weeks haven’t been easy, and I’m not going to class or studying for finals.

In any case, Majerus said he was giving his players today off from practice — which everyone can use — but not from him.

“Tomorrow I’m giving them off for academics,” he said. “I’m actually going to meet at my place for lunch, all the freshmen, to talk to them about everything but basketball. I will not bring up basketball. I’ll talk to them about life issues, about academic issues. Tonight I was telling them the story of growing up with Johnny Johnson and Freddie Brown. Downtown Freddy Brown with his two Big Ten championships and two (actually, one) Seattle SuperSonics championships while a pro. Forget about Iowa not retiring his number, they never got him a degree. Tomorrow is an important day, I’m going to spend two hours with them about life skills, life situations.”

Everyone involved can use a breather. SLU looked spent by the end of yesterday’s game. There seemed to be an awful lot of shots that were just short and a lot of fouls that were caused by doing things you do when you’re tired.

SLU’s start was better than it was the past two games — Majerus didn’t have to call a timeout in the first two minutes — but it was still ugly. A 1 for 15 start from  the floor was giving me flashbacks to GW last year. (By the way, SLU just missed getting off the hook recently. Ohio State beat Samford 59-22 on Saturday. Samford, which plays SLU on Dec. 13, had six points at the half and got a late 3-pointer to put them ahead of SLU.) If there was some way to throw that period out, SLU’s numbers weren’t that bad: 13 for 24 from the field on the game, 4 for 7 in the first half. Alas for SLU, games are 40 minutes.

“I felt we moved forward some,” Majerus said. “We had 10 3-point attempts, 8 were excellent shots, wide open. We have a difficulty struggling to score. (SIUC) did a good job with the pace of the game. Every play is so critical for us.”

Majerus on SIUC’s Bryan Mullins, who came into the game averaging 9.0 points per game and had eight on Tuesday, making 2 of 5 from the field: ”Mullins gets two baskets and it seems like they were 22 baskets. Both were going left. We talked to them about left, left, and left some more, I don’t know if he could complete a play to the right. It’s not derogatory toward him. In both those situations, Lisch was on him and I told Kevin, look you have to understand, we’re just playing certain percentages here.”

The first half was highlighted by foul trouble. Brett Thompson and Barry Eberhardt had three fouls, Brian Conklin and Willie Reed had two. SLU finished with a season-high 27 fouls. Six of them were offensive fouls. “They did a good job of getting us in foul trouble and we did a good job of getting in foul trouble ourselves with post defense,” Majerus said.

“Driving to the rim, screening, those account for a lot of our turnovers,” Majerus said. “Eberhardt has three turnovers, I think two are fouls. It is what it is. ” Six of SLU’s 15 turnovers were offensive fouls.

When SLU fell behind by 23 late in the game, it was their biggest deficit of the season. SLU never led, the second time this season that’s happened.

SLU shot 52.9 percent in the second half, their second best half of the season and only the second time in 12 halves they’ve been over 50 percent. The other was the second half against Kent State.

The SIUC people were happy about their defense — SLU shot 35.9 percent for the game — but after the first eight minutes, SLU shot  54.1 percent.

Not a good night at the free throw line, with SLU making 17 of 23. That’s a lot of trips to the line in a road game. In the previous three seasons, SLU has gone to the line on the road more only twice: Last year at Duquesne and in 05-06 at Oakland.

SLU has been outrebounded the past two games after outrebounding the opposition in the first four.

SLU had only six assists, the fewest since the GW game.

SIUC’s 42.5 field goal percentage was the lowest for a team to beat SLU so far this season.

The Salukis got 20 points off turnovers, the most for a SLU opponent this season.

In the past two games, Kevin Lisch has 27 points, 16 of them on free throws.

I’m not sure what Tommie Liddell did to get his technical foul — and he wasn’t available after the game to ask – but since no one saw an obvious dispaly of anger or frustration, he must have said something to the ref after being called for charging. In the past three games, Liddell has 3 assists and nine turnovers.

Eberhardt had four fouls in eight minutes. “I would like to get more out of Barry Eberhardt,” Majerus said. “I think the team would like to get more out of him. He has three turnovers and he fouls on that foul in front of their bench. It’s an obvious foul. Then he grabs the guy when he’s posted up. He has so many habits in a lifetime of bad habits. I don’t know if he can address those issues. He’s trying, he’s a good kid. It’s very difficult to change the habits of a lifetime.”

Paul Eckerle played eight minutes and clearly wasn’t afraid to shoot. (Though he was also given plenty of room to do that.) He was 0 for 3 from the field, all on 3’s.

Kwamain Mitchell fouled out for the first time in college. (He had four fouls Saturday at Detroit.) At the start of the game, Liddell was bringing the ball upcourt. Not sure if that was part of a grand scheme or not. Nebraska and Detroit both threw heavy pressure at Mitchell early.

Brian Conklin had his first sub-50 percent shooting game, making just 1 of 4 shots. He had three turnovers, matching his total in his first five games.

Kyle Cassity, sort of back home, was 0 for 3 on shooting. He’s 0 for 7 in the past two games. Majerus praised his play. “I thought his arrow moved up tonight,” he said, though noting that Cassity needs to work on his body. “His cheeks were fire engine red,” Majerus said.

Brett Thompson continues to start but not get a whole lot of minutes. He played just 10 against Carbondale, though his first half minutes were greatly reduced by two early fouls. And then Majerus had to put him back in late in the half because everyone else was in foul trouble and Thompson got a third, which got Willie Reed on the court to start the second half.

“Brett’s going to be fine,” Majerus said. “He’s got guts, but the pace of the game is an issue. I think he holds the Illinois high school shot block record, because in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Playing in that small a league, he blocked so many shots because he could get away with being big. But he does make progress. It’s going to be a challenge for him. He needs what we don’t have, practice time and time. “

SLU is 0 for 6 on jump balls this season.

Willie Reed played 26 minutes and was 2 for 2 from the field, but the one alley-oop SLU tried didn’t work. He had five rebounds. It’s feast or famine with Reed and rebounds. His per game numbers: 7, 1, 8, 2, 1, 5

Ruben Cotto had five points in four minutes but Majerus didn’t like his defense and thought his arrow went down.

After a brief respite, I’ve got plus-minus numbers. The guys who did best are the guys who played the least, and it certainly helped not to be on the court for SIUC’s late game 12-0 run.

Eckerle +3

Cotto +1

Reed -1

Eberhardt -4

Cassity -5

Mitchell -11

Liddell -13

Conklin -14

Thompson -15

Lisch -21

At one point postgame, Majerus started talking about Daniel Lisch. It came up in the context of a discussion of the team’s youth:

“I love Daniel Lisch,” he said. “He’ll go on to Frontenac, I don’t know where he’s going, but I’ll give him a big hug and he’s on his way. But it’s an honor and a privelege to have a Lisch on the team because of the character of the kid.”

I assume he meant Fontbonne.

After losses, there often isn’t a whole lot of humor in Majerus’ postgame media sessions, but he had everyone chuckling in this exchange:

“Again, I applaud Southern. Where were they picked in the league? To win it?”

Reporters: ”Second.”

Majerus: ”Who was picked to win it?”

Reporters: “Creighton.”

Majerus: “Oh God, we’ve got to play them too, probably. I don’t even want to see them coming. If they’re better than Southern …”

SLU might play Creighton on the second day in Las Vegas.