Invoking memories of the peach basket days.

Okay, I know I said in my hoops article that if you want to see exciting basketball, watch the A-10.

And, that was very true on Wednesday night, with two high-scoring affairs between Dayton and Rhode Island (92-83 Dayton) and St. Joseph’s and Umass (98-92 St. Joe’s), and a three-overtime nail biter between Richmond and LaSalle, along with Charlotte‘s 82-72 upset of top-20 Clemson.

So, I suppose that a letdown tonight was inevitable, huh?

There are 36 D-I hoopsters currently averaging 20 or more points thus far this season, and tonight, the Saint Louis Billikens could have used one of them, or their former star Larry Hughes, as they bricked time and again against George Washington.

The brick parade started a little over a minute into the game, as Barry Eberhardt missed a layup.

Nearly 39 minutes and 47 shots later, the Billikens had made the net swish an abysmal seven times, in the process setting a D-I post-shot clock record in hardwood futility with 20 points in a 49-20 loss to George Washington.

No, Scott Linehan wasn’t on the sideline, but if he was in the building, he might be banned after tonight.

They got on the board with a free throw 5:44 into the game, but didn’t make their first shot until the 11:32 mark, when they had their hot streak for the night, hitting on three of four shots.
Then they got cold again, not hitting another shot for the last 8:39 of the first half, with GW going on a 12-0 run to take a 25-7 lead at the break.

The second half didn’t go much better, as they managed only a free throw in the first 9:21 of the half until Luke Meyer’s layup made it 36-10, as the Colonials went on a 23-1 run spanning 18 minutes.

Their last points came with 2:56 left on a free throw by Anthony Mitchell, which made it 47-20. The two-point conversion pass was no good, unfortunately, and they failed to recover the onside kick.

The Colonials added a safety to round out the scoring, and, wait…wrong sport.

Now, I won’t rag on the Billikens too much, because Rick Majerus didn’t inherit any big-time scorers the likes of Hughes or Keith Van Horn when he took over from Brad Soderberg, who was fired despite a 20-win season last year. Even before tonight, SLU was last in the A-10 in scoring at 59.8 points per game.

And, it’s not as if the defense did a terrible job, holding GW to 49 points, lowering their points allowed mark to 57.3 per game for the season.

Just as quickly as they’re the butt of jokes tonight, they could be in the spotlight for all the right reasons in the next week if they can upset either top-20s Dayton and Rhode Island, with both games at home.

However, with the #17 Flyers (73.1 points per game) and the Rams (83.6 PPG) having engaged in a 92-83 showdown on Wednesday night (a Dayton win), the Billikens are going to have to a) continue to play great defense, and b) score more than 20 points in each half, if they want to have a chance at winning.

Oh, in case you’re wondering, the A-10’s leading scorers, Dionte Christmas of Temple and Gary Forbes of UMass were averaging 21.1 and 20.9 points coming into Thursday.