The Billikens recently had two road wins against some bottom dwellers in the A10, Duquesne and St. Bonaventure. These games were important for the process of picking themselves up from the hardwood and piecing the season back together.
The game that everyone in St. Louis was looking forward to was a home game against No. 9 ranked Butler. The same Butler that went to back to back title games just a couple of years ago.
The game did not disappoint. St. Louis came out on fire, led by a ferocious defense. SLU's defense rarely left a shooter open and looked for every chance to cause deflections. Butler ended the game with 23 turnovers. St. Louis took advantage of those turnovers, converting 21 points off those turnovers.
Offensively, the Billikens were led by junior guard Jordair Jett, who scored 19 points. The Billikens did a great job finding the open man and not letting up. When the team could have taken the foot off the pedal, they didn’t, and instead, stepped on it even more. They had something to prove.
Where did all of the intensity come from? How about a sold out crowd and a blizzard of Billikens fans that brought the energy to the Chafeitz Arena. If fans come like that to every Billiken game, Chafeitz Arena will be a place almost impossible for any team come into and play.
The hardest thing for the Billikens to do is let this define their season and be their one big win. One of the hardest things to do in sports is to find the consistency to play at such a high level every night.
If the Billikens can play defense like they did against Butler every night, nobody will want to dance with the Saint Louis Billikens come March.
Anthony Wiber is a columnist for StlSportsMinute.com and is a main contributor on The Cruddy Show (@CruddyShow), a St. Louis sports talk show that airs on Tuesdays and Fridays at 9:30 pm CT. You can follow Wiber on Twitter as well (@AWibes).
