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LOCATION: St. Louis, MO
CONFERENCE: Conference USA (American)
LAST SEASON: 15-16 (.484)
CONFERENCE RECORD: 8-8 (5th)
STARTERS LOST/RETURNING: 2/3
NICKNAME: Billikens
COLORS: Blue & White
HOMECOURT: Kiel Center (20,000)
COACH: Lorenzo Romar (Washington, '80)
record at school First year
career record 42-44 (3 years)
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ASSISTANTS: Randy Bennett (UC-San Diego '85)
Cameron Dollar (UCLA '96)
Jim Shaw (Western Oregon '85)
TEAM WINS: (last 5 years) 23-16-11-21-15
RPI (last 5 years) 36-89-172-42-94
1998-99 FINISH: Lost in conference quarterfinal.
ESPN.com Clubhouse
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Someday, we will get around to clearing up the eternal mystery of why any coach let alone EVERY coach would want to leave Malibu. Jim Harrick. Tom Asbury. Lorenzo Romar. They all leave paradise, eventually. Of course, this is not the issue at hand. The issue is not so much why Romar would choose to leave Pepperdine, but why he would choose to leave Pepperdine for Saint Louis. There is the matter of money (he'll make a lot more) and the prestige of Conference USA (greater than the West Coast Conference, certainly). But it's a program whose previous coach was beloved (that's never good for the successor) and whose best player in the past 30 years hung around the program only long enough to take one lap around the league. (You remember Larry Hughes. Don't you?). It's certainly not a dire situation that Romar has entered, but it seems a long way to go to coach Chris Heinrich. "I think that the program has the potential to do something really special," Romar said, answering the "why" question. These are the things about the program he considers most promising:
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Blue Ribbon Analysis |
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BACKCOURT B BENCH/DEPTH B-
FRONTCOURT C+ INTANGIBLES B-
Saint Louis is one of the toughest teams to read because of the coaching change. The personnel is not overwhelming, but there is experience. For varying reasons, Justin Love, Matt Baniak and Justin Tatum all have talent that has not been fully realized. If all three reached their potential at once, this could be a first-division team in the American Division. The Billikens, of course, will have to adjust to Romar's approach. And he to theirs. "It's very important as a coach to be able to adjust to your personnel," Romar said. "Those guys have been taught very well how to play basketball, so you're not going to have to fight that battle. They're very coachable. Maybe initially, they don't all play the way we'd like to play all the time, but because of their ability to listen and learn, I think they can adjust and we can do OK." Romar is pleased that the Billikens have been instructed on the art of playing defense. Although the field goal percentages they've allowed have generally been at the higher end of the C-USA scale, that's because they've always pushed their wings high above the free-throw line. Teams that broke through that first pack of defenders often were able to convert, but getting through required too much effort and almost always took teams out of what they liked to do on offense. It was a style that few coaches aside from Spoonhour employed, and it will be interesting to see if Romar keeps any of that in place. "I think our biggest challenge is to keep these guys competitive but also to get them acclimated to a brand new system," Romar said. "The sooner we can do that will dictate how well we'll do." It seems reasonable to figure the Billikens have enough questions that they'll finish toward the bottom of the division, but enough talent that they'd be a middle-of-the-pack team were the league a 1-through-12 operation with no divisions. That's always the way Spoonhour wanted C-USA to be arranged. Obviously, with good reason. |
ú Great facility. The Kiel Center is a major-league arena that makes a handsome home for a Divison I team. ú Great sports town. St. Louis has supported the Billikens in a manner that exceeds what they've accomplished on the court. Last season's sub-.500 team drew an average of more than 15,000 fans per game. ú Central location for recruiting. Indeed, Saint Louis is close to a lot, but there are a lot of other programs in the same region, from Missouri to Illinois to Kansas to Iowa. This seems the most dubious of his contentions, but the city and its surrounding area have grown progressively better in terms of producing talent, from the legendary Hughes to Chris Carrawell of Duke to current prospect Darius Miles of East St. Louis, Ill. "It has many of the intangibles that it takes to be a big-time program," Romar said. "It was a challenge. Those are some of the reasons it was very exciting to me." In his time at Pepperdine, Romar had a dismal rookie year because there were no players in the program when he took over. And that sandbagged his career record. His past two teams both were winners, and the 1999 team was invited to the NIT. His first team at SLU should be significantly better, although the nature of C-USA's American Division is such that the Billikens could be better and still finish fifth. Last year 8-8 would have been good enough for a strong second-place finish in the opposite half of the league, the National Division. In the American, it was one spot from the bottom. Saint Louis does not have the same talent as Cincinnati or DePaul or, most likely, Louisville. It may have a bit more than UNC Charlotte, though, and could fight for a fourth-place spot if the team makes a comfortable transition to Romar's style. Whereas under Charlie Spoonhour the Billikens often found themselves relying on their defensive wrestling skills to be successful or competitive, Romar will want more athletic players, "long-limbed guys who can cover a lot of ground defensively," Romar said. This team has only one such player, 6-4 junior Maurice Jeffers, a recruit from Westark Community College in Arkansas who averaged 19.3 points and 9.1 rebounds and shot .308 percent from the three-point line. Obviously, his long-distance shooting needs to be improved or ignored. Jeffers will instantly compete for a starting position on a team whose only genuine wing-style scorer in the last four seasons was Hughes. Otherwise, the team has been getting by at that position with guys who aren't quick enough, aren't agile enough, can't shoot well enough. Spoonhour did a marvelous job of winning so many games while having so much trouble generating points. Jeffers is one of the two parting gifts Spoon generally left behind for Romar. The other is 6-1 freshman point guard Marque Perry. He will instantly compete for a starting position on a team whose only genuine playmaker in the last four seasons was Hughes. The Bills tried to get by for much of that stretch with Jamall Walker at the point. Walker had a knack for cutting loose turnovers at the game's most crucial moments. Perry was excellent at the Five-Star Camp last summer and was a consensus Top 100 recruit. He averaged 20 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists as a junior at Prosser High in Chicago and 23 points, 12 assists, eight boards, two steals and a block as a senior. Perry is a pure point with superb penetration skills and a nice mid-range jump shot. He needs some work on his long-distance shooting. But in a league without great point guard play, he could immediately stand out. "If you talk about a guy you'd like to recruit to play the way we'd like to play, he's one," Romar said. "Any time a guy can create havoc against a defense, it's going to help you. He can break down defenses, can penetrate and push." Perry could become an instant starter, but he'll have to beat out incumbent Dave Fergerson. In his first year with the Billikens after transferring from junior college, Fergerson, a 6-4 senior, started the final 22 games and averaged 9.1 points, 2.1 rebounds and 1.9 assists. He was chosen the team's co-MVP, along with former shooting guard Virgel Cobbin. Fergerson is a solid point who plays hard and can score some, including 15 double-figure games as a junior, but he's not at all creative and his shooting would have to significantly improve to make him impossible to beat out. He hit only .313 from three-point range. He tends to be streaky, but he did finish last year on a 10-for 19-surge. The only way 6-2 senior Justin Love will not open the season in the lineup is if he begins 1999 as he did 1998 injured. His junior season got a late start because of five weeks he sat out with a back injury. Even when he returned, he sometimes was not 100 percent, which isn't the best thing for a guy who often relies on his physical strength to finish plays. Love shot .378 from three-point range and averaged 13.7 points and 4.4 rebounds, and his numbers this year should increase in all categories. He scored 33 in a game against Memphis and had 19 against Southern Miss' tough defense. There is a lot of Ed Gray in Love, and more of it should come out as Romar features him. "I think you have a handful of juco transfers who come in as juniors and right away make a national impact," Romar said. "A lot of other ones, it takes them that preseason to really get acclimated, and usually in conference they start coming around. Justin Love didn't have the luxury of a preseason. He was good last year, and I think he'll even be better." There still will be a place for 6-1 senior John Redden (2.1 ppg, 1.3 rpg, 40 assists), who is among the league's best on-ball defenders. His minutes should slip as a result of Perry's emergence, but in those situations when Romar wents to emphasize defense and pressure, Redden will be available. He has averaged 12 minutes for his career but never scored more than 76 points in a season, although his shooting touch (13 of 43 career from three) is not abysmal. Competing with Jeffers for playing time are 6-7 senior Larry Simmons and 6-4 senior Troy Robertson and 6-5 redshirt freshman Drew Diener, who is likely at the end of the line. Simmons (3.4 ppg, 1.6 rpg) has been a disappointment since he was recruited out of Houston. He did show some long-distance shooting ability last season (17 of 37 from three-point range) but can't get open for that shot himself and didn't give Spoonhour enough reason to set up an offense that would free him. On the other hand, Robertson (3.9 ppg, 1.8 rpg) has had some impressive moments, including an inspired eight-point game in last year's upset of Kansas (and brother Ryan Robertson) and three for three three-point shooting in a loss to West Virginia. Robertson is a solid shooter (.375 from three) but is not athletic enough for C-USA. He could have been a star in the Mid-Continent Conference. It may be difficult for him to make an impact in Romar's more open style. Diener redshirted as a freshman after averaging 20 points and 7.4 rebounds as a senior at Goodrich High in Fond du lac, Wis. He is considered a proficient three-point shooter (.431 in high school) and is the son of a coach. For Romar, the most promising aspect of taking over the Billikens at this juncture is how much potential the frontcourt has left untapped, particulary 6-9, 235-pound junior center/forward Matt Baniak. After a promising rookie season in which he made the Conference USA all-freshman team, Baniak disintegrated as a sophomore. His scoring average dropped from 8.7 to 5.3, his rebounding from 5.0 to 3.6, his shooting percentage from .537 to .482 and his minutes from 23.7 to 18.2. Understand, Saint Louis wasn't good enough to be sitting a big man with Baniak's talent good feet, a solid frame, shot-blocking ability and a nice touch inside on the bench. But Baniak wasn't good enough the way he played last year to keep in many games. He was soft, reluctant, distracted. It seems part of the problem might have been preparation. Baniak is planning to become a physician and spent the entire summer after his freshman year working an internship that kept him away from the game. Another theory is that Baniak felt too much pressure after Hughes' departure and could not handle it. Romar believes Baniak is "on a mission. It will be interesting to see how he comes back from this year. He is so coachable, and wants to do well." Centers Chris Heinrich and Chris Braun are useful to have around because of their size, but Heinrich, a 6-11, 250-pound junior (3.5 ppg, 2.9 rpg), has made little progress in two seasons. Although he is not awkard and is willing to absorb contact, he has shown very little in the way of instinct or ball skills. He does not get to the ball on the glass and is not able to do much as an offensive target. He has only 18 assists in two seasons and has offset each of those with more than three turnovers. Braun, a 6-10, 235-pound freshman, redshirted his first year on campus, after an all-state senior season in 1997-98 at Gibault High in Waterloo, Ill. He averaged 15 points, 8.0 rebounds and shot .600 from the field as a senior. The Billikens also added a late recruit in 6-9 power forward Andrew Latimere from Australia, who will join the team as a freshman. Even with all these big bodies, it's quite possible SLU will open with Baniak in the middle and 6-7, 235-pound sophomore Justin Tatum (7.2 ppg, 4.5 rpg, .407 FG) at power forward. Tatum tried to become eligible for the spring semester of the 1997-98 season, but when that didn't work out, he wound up sitting for a year and a half. That hurt his progress, but he's a tough inside player who should be much better than last year's stats suggest. The field-goal percentage is most troubling, but could be explained by the amount of rust on his game. He had some promising individual games, including 14 points against Kansas State, seven points and seven rebounds against Kansas and 18 points and eight rebounds against Memphis. Tatum is one of those powerful, undersized post players opponents so often have a tough time defending, but he's got to be more polished with the ball on the block. Romar would do well to get him in more situations where he can be isolated there. It was not a strength of Spoonhour's offense. This should be a crucial year for Tatum. "I think we need to reserve our judgment until this season," Romar said. "He has the potential to be a double-double guy."
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