Saint Louis coach Josh Schertz has heard his teams called “feel-good stories” over the years, the best example being his Indiana State squad of a couple of seasons ago, which made a run to the NIT finals behind bespectacled star Robbie Avila.
The No. 19 Billikens are more than a feel-good story, though. They are simply good. They have 15 straight games going into Tuesday night’s trip to Davidson, where they can extend a school-best 21-1 start to the season by improving to 11-0 in the Atlantic 10.
Their only loss came by a single point — 78-77 — against Stanford in the final of the Acrisure Invitational in November.
“We’re not a feel good story. I mean, we have great players. It starts with that,” Schertz said. “Nothing works without that.”
One of those great players is Avila, who made the jump from Indiana State to Saint Louis when his coach did. Avila leads an unselfish team on which six players are averaging double-figures scoring with 12.8 points, 4.8 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game.
But the supporting cast is a whole lot better than last season, when Saint Louis went 19-15 and lost in the NIT’s first round. It includes four freshmen and six transfers: Quentin Jones, a guard from Northern Illinois, shooters Trey Green from Xavier and Ishan Sharma from Virginia, top rebounder Dion Brown from Boston College, Paul Otieno from Quinnipiac and Brady Dunlap from St. John’s.
“That’s the beauty of this team. You got a lot of guys that can come in do a lot of different things,” said Green, who scored 23 points in both of the Billikens’ wins last week, going 13 of 20 from beyond the arc. “It doesn’t put a lot of pressure on your shoulders.”
Yet there is unquestionable pressure on the Billikens, especially as they keep winning. The only teams with longer winning streaks as they entered the week were unbeaten Arizona (22-0) and Miami of Ohio (22-0), and UConn, which has won its last 17 games.
That is some pretty good company as Saint Louis tries to make its first NCAA tourney appearance since the 2018-19 season.
“Prioritizing (that) winning is not easy, because there’s a lot of things that come up that you can prioritize: stats, money, attention, who’s getting what? There’s all kinds of headwinds,” Schertz said. “Can you embrace accept roles? Can you manage your ambition?
“Winning trumps it all for them, and they understand team success will drive everything they want, and they’re putting the individual stuff aside,” Schertz added. “They’re all sacrificing at different levels to make this work.”
More mid-majors rising
Gonzaga has been the standard-bearer for teams from mid-major conferences for years, but the sixth-ranked Bulldogs have not had a whole lot of company as the power conferences began to dominate Division I men’s college basketball.
That has changed a bit this year. Not only have the Billikens reached their highest point in the AP poll since March 10, 2014, Miami of Ohio has fought its way to its highest point since the heyday of Wally Szczerbiak on November 30, 1998.
Other mid-majors receiving votes this week include Utah State, Santa Clara and George Mason.
The road for the unbeatens
Arizona need only worry about a weekend trip to Oklahoma State to get through another week unscathed, but then things get a whole lot more difficult for Tommy Lloyd and his crew: six of their next seven are against teams ranked in the top 16 this week.
The road begins February 9 in Allen Fieldhouse against No. 11 Kansas, then continues at home with visits from No. 13 Texas Tech and No. 16 BYU. Trips follow to eighth-ranked Houston and Baylor before the Wildcats finish what could be the toughest month February in the country with games at the McKale Center against the Jayhawks and seventh-ranked Iowa State.
“We’ve got a tough couple games coming up,” Lloyd said. “Not easy.”
The path to perfection is easier for the RedHawks — How could it be harder? — but still offers plenty of perils. They visit Buffalo and Marshall this week, both of whom are 14-8 this season. The latter game is part of the MAC-Sun Belt Challenge.
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Associated Press writer Jeff Latzke in St. Louis contributed to this report.
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By DAVE SKRETTA
AP Basketball Writer
