ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — As frequent readers of this space may know, radio guy Earl Austin and I routinely look at each other and roll our eyes when SLU is in situations where it is working for the last shot, because it almost never works. I’ve made a career of turning to writers sitting next to me in those situations and saying, “Watch this, all they’ll do is get off a 30-footer at the buzzer.” Which, of course, is what happened at the end of regulation. Except Mitchell’s shot was only 24 feet.

But in overtime, Mitchell kept the ball, drove to the basket for a layup La Salle coach John Giannini said was “way too easy,” and SLU moved on to the quarterfinals.

Xavier will be tough for SLU. SLU’s second game in two days. A big height disadvantage. That 26-point loss the first time the teams met. Though, as loyalists may recall, that sounds a lot like SLU-Cincinnati in the C-USA tournament in 2000. I’m not sure who on Xavier would have to break his leg, however.

Xavier, has, however, lost to Charlotte this season and Charlotte didn’t beat many people. And it’s not at the Cintas Center.

La Salle coach John Giannini on SLU: “They play throwback Indiana 1976 defense. They deny one pass away, give great weakside help, they fly around the court, they help to deny, they’re tough on the ball, they guard ballscreens great. What they do offensively is really sound and based on good spacing and the right guys handling the ball and tremendous role definition and good reads, but it’s simple. It’s clear they spend a ton of time on defense beucase they play textbook defense. Occasionally they tweak their base defense on the scouting report.”

Giannini on defending Mitchell at the end: “He just drove to the basket and we got beat off the dribble. Stay in front and make him miss like we had the rest of the game. That was the strategy. No special trick defenses. Our defense was good, we held them to 34 percent. The problem was not our defense. We gave up an easy one at the end of the first half, and the last two were too easy. A couple of breakdowns cost you.”

Majerus on the game: “The thing that won the game was the defense. Tommie and Kevin not only played especially well on their men, they gave terrific help and Barry played his best defensive game of his career. He played smart, he doubled when he should have, and he pulled off the double. This is the way it should happen. These guys played well today. Some of us played our best game today. This is definitely Willie’s best effort.”

 The question I put to Majerus was, “What are your thoughts about playing Xavier again?” His answer:

“Xavier’s really good. Anderson’s a lotto pick. They have a tremendous array of talent and athletic ability. It will be a real challenge for us. Xavier’s really good. I’d tell you what would be a shame, would be for us to beat Xavier and them not go to the tournament. They’re problaby going to go anyway, they should go anyway. I never liked conference tournaments. I never liked the academics of it. I’ve always felt, I watched last night, I’ve won, I’ve been to a lot of NCAA tournaments, and I’ve said it when we won and when we lost, that’s not changing. I’m much prouder of what Tommie has done acadmically. These tournaments detract from academics. Butler’s going to go and deserve to go. I really believe the regular season is everything. We could win this, put on a hat and a shirt – we aren’t going to win this – but say we’re the champs, what a phony thing that would be. We’re the champs of those four games. The champs are the regular season champs, that’s the way it is. We’re going to come out and play our (butt) off. I’m not a big conference tournament guy. If someone plays their way in, some of them do not deserve to go. I’ve always felt that way.”