The Saint Louis Billikens played exactly the game they needed to play vs. the Michigan State Spartans, cutting the pace to zero and playing as physically as college basketball is played, but their second-half shooting wasn't quite good enough to offset the Spartans' superior talent; they lost by a final score of 65-61. SLU's best NCAA Tournament since 1998 is over, but not before an impressive March Madness run that saw them within three points of the No. 1 seed in their region.
Senior Brian Conklin and junior Kwamain Mitchell led SLU with 11 points each, but both of them struggled to score from the field—they combined to go 6-18, while the team as a whole went 16-47. Nobody with more than four paints made at least half his shots from the field for the Billikens, who were 5-21 from the three-point line.
The Billikens couldn't quite pull off the upset of the tournament, but Rick Majerus and company have proven themselves to be postseason contenders—the regular season next fall should be the most excited the SLU campus has been about basketball in some time, and justifiably so.
More SLU coverage from today's action:
- Three first-half air balls, available here in animated GIF form, characterized the ugliness of SLU's first half.
- Of course, so does Draymond Green's non-flagrant foul.
- That's just the game Rick Majerus and company always play: Make it as ugly as possible.