Sorry to be late with this — I know you’re planning your day around it — but with last night’s late start and my need to watch the U.S.-Mexico World Cup qualifying match before I knew the result chewed up some time.

If all you saw was the first 15 minutes of the second half of this game, you’d have been dazzled by SLU. If all you saw was the first 10 minutes of the first half, you’d have been shocked. Those segments were extremely different, with SLU either doing all sorts of things wrong or all sorts of things right. Fortunately for them, they were substantially better for a longer period of time than they were substantially bad. And when Charlotte got into foul trouble, the not-to-deep 49ers had problems.

The win sets up a significant game on Saturday at Rhode Island. SLU is tied at the moment with Duquesne and Rhode Island for fifth in the A-10 at 6-4. A win Saturday would be SLU’s third in a row on the road — no small trick — and very likely give them the tiebreaking edge with Duquesne and Rhode Island, schools that figure to finish around them in the standings. (SLU still has another game with Duquesne.) I think getting to fourth in the league is still a longshot, though we may have a better idea of that after the Temple game tonight since the Owls would be the team SLU would have to catch. And actually, as I look at the schedule, if Temple loses tonight at St. Joe’s (really at the Palestra) and then loses Sunday at Duquesne, two results that are quite possible and SLU beats Rhode Island, the Billikens would be tied with Duquesne for fourth and have the tiebreaker edge. But that three-game parlay may be a bit too much to ask. SLU winning at Rhody is probably the toughest part of that trifecta.

A year ago, SLU was 14-10, 5-5. So they’re only one game better than a year ago. But they haven’t had a four-game conference win streak since the end of the ‘05-06 season. And that team looked like it was poised to do something and then lost to Dayton in overtime and didn’t show up against La Salle and then got smashed by St. Joe’s in the A-10 tournament.

Attendance was 7,144, off some recent games but OK considering the weather. SLU’s last three home games are all expected to draw better. St. Joe’s will be tough because it’s a 9 p.m. start. I’m not a big fan of it either.

Kevin Lisch has been SLU’s leading scorer the past three games. He hasn’t been the sole leading scorer (meaning he didn’t share the lead with someone else in a game) in three straight games since a four-game run his freshman season.

Kwamain Mitchell shared the rebounding lead with Lisch with 6. It’s the first time Mitchell has been the team’s leading rebounder in a game.

In the past four games, SLU has overcome deficits of 7 against Fordham, 9 against Duquesne, 8 against Richmond, 10 against Charlotte.

In the four game win streak, SLU has shot 44.8 percent or better from the field and 41.2 percent or better on 3’s. SLU’s record this season when shooting 40 percent or better from the field: 5-1. (They lost at Dayton.)

More dicey free throw shooting down the stretch almost made it tougher than it needed to be. But then you look at the league stats and SLU is fifth in free throw shooting. Four teams in the league make less than two out of three free throws. (SLU was at 69.8 going into the game.)

SLU is 12-2 at home. Only Dayton (15-0) and Xavier (11-1) have better home records in the league.

A stat that surprised me was SLU was only outrebounded by 1. It seemed a lot worse, though that may have been because Charlotte had 15 offensive rebounds which produced 13 points. Those 15 offensive rebounds matched Dayton, DePaul and BC for the most against SLU this season. When Charlotte missed a shot, Charlotte got the ball 15 times and SLU got it 22 times.

The number is inflated by the triple overtime, but SLU has turned the ball over 34 times in the past two games. SLU’s 15 in 40 minutes against Charlotte was four shy of the 19 in 55 minutes against Richmond. And a bunch of those turnovers were offensive fouls.

SLU’s PPP was 1.02. It’s been 1.00 or over in every game of the win streak.

SLU’s six blocks, five by Willie Reed, were a season high. The last Billiken to have five blocks in a game was Bryce Husak against North Carolina A&T last season. Charlotte had only four blocks; it seemed like more, maybe because of the distance they flew. When Charlotte’s Phil Jones blocked a shot, he blocked a shot.

Only North Carolina A&T was called for more fouls against SLU than Charlotte, 24 to 23. Feel free to make a blanket statement about the Carolinas.

A few weeks ago, I’d written off Lisch’s chances of catching Scott Highmark for fifth all-time in SLU scoring, but after scoring 66 points in the past three games, he’s back in the realm of possibility. If SLU’s season ends with the conference tournament, he’ll need to average 18.7 points. If SLU plays one more game than the conference opener, he’ll need 16.3. And if SLU plays two more games, and the chance of postseason basketball gets better with every win, he’ll need 14.5. Avergaing 18.7 will be tough, but if he’s averaging 16, that could mean more wins, which could mean extra games. He’s starting to get hot on 3’s: 13 for 22 in the past three games.

Tommie Liddell had 13 points, to move past Harry Rogers into seventh on the SLU scoring list, and he’s 79 points behind Lisch. Liddell had no rebounds, the first time since his freshman season when Brad Soderberg played him for just 13 minutes against Richmond because he wasn’t happy with his defense. He was 4 for 11 from the field and it now seems to be his turn to get cold. With two assists he moved into 11th on the school’s all-time list and needs 12 in the final seven games (plus) to become the only SLU player in the top 10 in points, rebounds and assists. Of course, he’ll have that distinction for only a few years. Unless he were to somehow catch Lisch, who’s 20 ahead of him, Liddell will finish his career in 10th and he’ll drop out of the top 10 in Kwamain Mitchell’s junior season, barring injury.

The Barry Eberhardt offensive explosion continues and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him start against Rhode Island, since Eberhardt’s arrow seems to be up and Brian Conklin’s down. Eberhardt played 30 minutes against Charlotte (he played only 19 against Richmond), and Majerus admitted he was surprised he played that much. His rebounding numbers have been down the past couple games, but he had only one personal foul in 30 minutes. The only other time this season Eberhardt had just one foul was against UMSL. He leads the team in fouls by a mile.

Paul Eckerle played just nine minutes, pretty standard for a guy the day I write a big story about him. (Big story on Kwamain Mitchell? He got a concussion that night.)

Kwamain Mitchell had seven turnovers, two on charges, and I’m not sure that the plan in the last couple minutes there was to have him dribble the shot clock down to 3 and then run full tilt for the basket. Even if he hadn’t fouled out, I think he might have been on the bench after that second charge anyway, though he might have been needed to get the ball upcourt against Charlotte’s pressure. Mitchell has 14 rebounds in the past two games.

Brian Conklin played just seven minutes, which says Eberhardt was doing well and he wasn’t. He hardly played in the second half, as Eberhardt started the half, Conklin came in for a few seconds, got his third foul, and then spent the rest of the half on the bench. He was 0 for 2 from the field, the first he has failed to score at SLU. In the past three games, he has one rebound.

Kyle Cassity made one 3, but it was he didn’t take that stood out. During the stretch that led to SLU falling behind 16-6 in the first half, he had a 3 on the right wing that he didn’t take. He dribbled in, took a 16-footer that missed. “Kyle, take that shot,” Majerus yelled. The next time Cassity got the ball, he took a 3 from the corner and made it. It started a 7-2 run that got SLU back in the game.

I think this one of Brett Thompson’s better games in a while. He seems to be able to do things when the opponent has big muscular guys. He had three rebounds in 10 minutes and just one turnover, which again was the fault of his hands.

Because of the late start last night, I was writing “running” as we say and I started to type a sentence that began “SLU had five players in double figures for the second time in three games…” when Willie Reed went to the line to shoot 2 in the closing minute. He missed both, so I went back and deleted that. He finished with nine. He had five rebounds in 24 minutes, four fouls and five blocks. When you see Reed against strong postmen like Charlotte has, it’s clear how much he gets tossed around. It was an up and down game for Reed, who went to the bench looking unhappy at times. “We’d get one first put out with Willie and then another would break out,” Majerus said.

It was the fourth time this season SLU has shot 20 percentage points better in the second half than the first. They’re 3-1 in those games, losing at SIUC.

SLU’s opponents have shot worse in the second half than the first in six of the past seven. And the one exception was the Fordham game, where SLU had a big lead and was likely bored. That’s been a key in SLU being able to come back from first-half deficits so often.

SLU is 3-0 this season with Joe Townsell working the game. In SLU’s four years in the A-10, they are 8-0 with Townsell as one of the refs.

I’m really not sure what to make of the plus-minus in this game. One of the hallmarks of a first half like SLU did is lots of subs as Majerus tried to find a combination that worked. Paul Eckerle turned out to be the leader, which you wouldn’t expect from a guy that didn’t play that many minutes and had a scoreline of almost all 0’s. (He had one rebound, one assist, one turnover.) Some of the other results fall into line better:

Eckerle +15

Mitchell +14

Reed +11

Thompson +8

Lisch +3

Eberhardt -1

Cassity -2

Liddell -4

Conklin -4