Some thoughts on the basketball schedule:

Nebraska is the only new home-and-home on the series. The Kent State, BC and Detroit series ends this season. The rest are buy games. There are several new home-and-home series coming on line in the 09-10 season (sorry I don’t know who they are). The Southern Illinois series will continue and Missouri State should rejoin the schedule.

Missouri-St. Louis may not seem like a dazzling opener for Chaifetz, but it may be the best under the circumstances. With Kent State, Boston College and then three road games coming up, the top of the schedule will be a challenge for a team with eight freshmen. A game with UMSL will at least give them a win to start the season. Even if BC isn’t a great team, a team with eight freshmen getting a lot of minutes is going to need some time to learn Majerus’ complex offense. (Remember by late last season, the team was still having troubles grasping everything.) And as for playing a DII school, the three extra games generated by the Findlay Toyota Las Vegas Classic (probably the last time I use the full name) gives SLU plenty of games.

Once you get past those three road games, the schedule doesn’t look that bad and the team can roll up some wins. The early stage of this season is going to be a complete crap shoot. Yes, they’re talented freshmen, but they’re freshmen, and there will be ups and downs.

The conference season opens at Xavier, so that will be a test right off the bat. The Thursday-Saturday Dayton-Fordham games will be a challenge (and I face the choice of where to spend Friday night: Dayton or New York?) and the dreaded St. Bonaventure trip comes in late February. I haven’t reviewed the weather patterns for that time of year.

And, in one of the rarest sights, the season finale at home! Haven’t seen that since 2004 and before that, 1995.

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Considering ordering replica jerseys? Here are the numbers for the new guys on the team:

23 — Kyle Cassity

14 — Brian Conklin

3 — Kwamain Mitchell

33 — Willie Reed

41 — Brett Thompson

No numbers yet for Ruben Cotto and Femi John, who apparently have asked for the same number. Not sure on the number. According to our files, Cotto wore 15 last year in high school (Barry Eberhardt’s already wearing it), John wore 13.

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Just to tie up a loose end, Adam Knollmeyer has transferred to Missouri Science and Technology, formely Missouri-Rolla. I don’t think I ever wrote that.

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The third assistant coach could be named soon. I’m in favor of Alex Jensen, who’s been filling in that post over the summer. I think it’s the right thing, and I don’t think another season of him being the senior graduate manager will make much difference.

Nebraska would come to SLU in the 2009-10 season. SLU hasn’t played Nebraska since the opener of the 1990 season.

Unless a big name is a late arrival on the schedule, Nebraska, Boston College and DePaul would be the only BCS conference teams on the schedule.

Others known to be on the schedule are Detroit Mercy, Southern Illinois, Kent State, DePaul (at a tournament in Las Vegas) and either Creighton or Fresno State. DePaul’s schedule doesn’t say they’re playing SLU, but the website for the tournament, as a previous poster has pointed out, says SLU will play DePaul. There will be the closed-door scrimmage vs. Memphis at Chaifetz and an exhibition game against Harris-Stowe, which would be making the world’s shortest road trip.

The entire schedule apparently isn’t complete, but should be soon. (As if I haven’t written that before.) A lot of schools haven’t released their nonconference schedules yet (Missouri, for instance). The Atlantic 10 schedule could be out soon.

Well, CollegeSoccerNews.com has them ranked eighth in its preseason poll, while the National Soccer Coaches Association of America has them ranked 19th.

Still to come is the Soccer America magazine rankings, but if history is any indication, SLU will be ranked closer to 19th by the publication. The Billikens traditionally are ranked lower by Soccer America than they are by others.

As usual, SLU’s schedule contains some tough games: UConn, which is SLU’s regular season home opener on Sept. 13, is ranked second by both. Creighton, which comes to town on Oct. 4, is ranked seventh and sixth. Northwestern is ranked 16th and 20th and A-10 foe UMass is No. 22 and 13.

By the start of league play, it should be clear how good SLU is.

The conference tournament is at Duquesne this year. I’m sure the crowds will be large.

 Here’s the preseason conference picks, with last year’s records:

 1. Saint Louis (8-1-0/12-2-5)
2. Massachusetts (6-3-0/17-8-1)
3. Charlotte (5-3-1/12-7-2)
4. Rhode Island (7-1-1/9-8-2)
5. Dayton (4-3-2/10-4-5)
6. George Washington (3-4-2/9-8-2)
7. Fordham (5-4-0/6-10-3)
8. Xavier (4-4-1/8-10-1)
9. Duquesne (3-6-0/5-11-3)
10. Richmond (1-8-0/4-14-1)
11. Temple (1-7-1/5-11-2)
12. La Salle (4-5-0/6-11-1)
13. St. Bonaventure (3-4-2/6-7-3)
14. Saint Joseph’s (4-5-0/5-12-1)

I figured the only thing that would happen while I was gone was the schedule would be released, which hasn’t happened. Instead, Paul Biancardi left for a more stable lifestyle at ESPN, a new assistant was hired and another Lisch is coming to SLU.

As for the schedule, it should be coming soon, but there apparently are some spots still to fill. The last I heard, the opener was still up in the air, though it’s possible that’s been taken care of and word didn’t find its way to me in Paris. One thing we do know from the league is which A-10 schools SLU will face twice: Dayton, Richmond and Duquesne. (We do know the nonconference schedule includes Missouri State, Kent State, Boston College, Southern Illinois, Missouri State and Detroit Mercy.)

* (Oops: SLU was trying to extend Missouri State on the schedule, but didn’t.)

 *Also, SLU will take part in the Las Vegas Classic, an eight-team tournament involving Creighton, DePaul, Fresno State, Liberty, Northern Colorado, South Carolina Upstate and Southern. The schedule hasn’t been set yet, or at least if it has, it hasn’t been announced, but likely SLU will get one of the lesser teams in the first round at home and then, presumably Creighton, DePaul or Fresno State in the second round, in Vegas on Dec. 22 and 23.

The bummers on the conference schedule are the dreadful trip to St. Bonaventure — how many schools in the nation are there that are almost three hours from the nearest major airport? And why does one of them have to be in SLU’s league? — and that SLU doesn’t play at St. Joe’s this season, which is playing its games at the Palestra. I was hoping to take in a game there.

And, since I have it handy, here’s who the rest of the league plays twice:

Charlotte: GW, Richmond, Xavier

Dayton: Duquesne, SLU, Xavier

Duquesne: Dayton, SBU, SLU

Fordham: RI, SBU, Xavier

GW: Charlotte, La Salle, Richmond

La Salle: GW, UMass, Temple

UMass: La Salle, RI, SJU

RI: Fordham, Mass, Temple

Richmond: Charlotte, GW, SLU

SBU: Duquesne, Fordham, SJU

SJU: UMass, SBU, Temple

Temple: La Salle, RI, SJU (that shouldn’t put much stress on the Owls traveling; by my reckoning, they have only four A-10 road games that will require a plane)

Xavier: Charlotte, Dayton, Fordham

With the clock running down and Mitchell’s team waiting for the last shot, Mitchell dribbled down the clock, bided his time, then drove to the basket and scored. On the list of things SLU has had trouble doing in the past few years, it’s been scoring at the end of the game when working for the last shot. A lot of times, SLU hasn’t even been able to get off a shot. Twice on Saturday night, Mitchell did it. If he can do that in games for SLU, it will be a welcome sight for fans.

Mitchell had four points as the national team beat the local team 128-121. Among other SLU recruits, Femi John had 15 points (at least by my count). Willie Reed, who played only eight games in his high school season before transferring at midseason and having to sit out the rest of the year, had four points.

Reed admitted afterward the transfer has kept him from playing a lot of games and that his conditioning is off. He was a lot skinnier than the two players who guarded him much of the night. Reed has an athletic game so they won’t want him bulking up, but he’s going to need to put on some weight or he’s get shoved around an awful lot. (He’s also going to benefit from a guard like Mitchell who get him the ball in position to score.) And despite the transfer and the semester spent at Milestone Academy, he said he will be eligible this season.

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The SLU nonconference schedule is still in the works. Among the games still uncertain is the opener, assuming you don’t count the exhibition with Harris-Stowe as the first basketball game at Chaifetz. The Boston College game is not the opener.

There isn’t much defense played in these games, but the end of the quarter is the only time you see a team have to play half-court defense.

 (FIXES OBVIOUS AND SILLY TYPO)

 The town of Oxford, Ohio, reminded Soderberg of Madison, Wisc., where he grew up while his dad was coaching at Wisconsin, and one of the people on the staff at Miami is Jason Grunkemeyer, who was on Brad’s staff at SLU.

 ”Grunk tried to explain it to me and he said the only place he could compare it to was Madison. He said it was a mini-version of Madison. I liked it. It’s a neat campus.”

 Soderberg, the Post-Dispatch’s player of the year, chose Miami over Wisconsin-Green Bay, which had its own advantages since there are plenty of Soderbergs within a short drive of Green Bay.

“On the plane ride home, I wrote down the good things and the bad things and compared them on paper. They were extremely close. It pretty much came down at the end to a gut feeling. I followed my stomach, which I’ve done all my life.”

By coincidence, Miami was able to go after Soderberg after another St. Louis area player, Alex Moosman from Borgia, decided to transfer, opening up a scholarship.

Kramer’s dad, meanwhile, remains without a job. Brad has interviewed for several head coaching jobs and is a candidate for the still-open Florida Atlantic job, though former St. John’s coach Mike Jarvis is believed to be the frontrunner for that job.

 Northern Kentucky is in the Great Lakes Valley Conference, which includes SIUE and UMSL, so he’ll be coming back to town every year.

“I was concerned they were going to bring in a coach that wanted us to pass
the ball 10 times before we shoot. Nothing against Rick Majerus. He’s one of
the best coaches ever, but they want to score in the 50s. With the personnel
we have we want to get up and down and make the game fun.”

Tip of the hat to Matt Vautour