Billiken Preview, Reverse Tag Edition

So tomorrow the premiere game of BG's home non-conference schedule will take place.  The St. Louis Billikens will invade Anderson Arena in what will be a stiff test for the the Falcons.

A few things that make it interesting to me...

First, real old-timers will remember that in the very early days of the Falcon hockey program, the St. Louis Billikens were our first rival.  They were coached by a guy named Bill Selman, and we had some epic battles with the Billikens in the early days of the CCHA.  They eventually quit playing hockey...

Second, I love the nickname.  You can see more about it here, but the jist is that a woman (from St. Louis) came up with a little gnomish toy that was the Cabbage Patch Doll of its age, ie, a red hot gift and toy for about six months.  SLU had, at the time, a coach who apparently looked like the Billikens, and that's where it all started.  Anyway, I like it when teams have unique nicknames with local color.

Third, it represents the return of Rick Majerus to Anderson Arena.  He coached for three seasons at Ball State, a period of time in which he won over 70% of his games.  Compared to the freak-show appearance of Isaiah Thomas, this is the arrival of a true coaching rock star.  He has been to the Final Four, and I don't think we get too many coaches like that in our house.  See below.

College Basketball Stats by StatSheet.com

So what about these Billikens?  This is a really good team.  They are in one sense an oddity, because they are the second youngest team in D1 Basketball.  Statsheets.com takes each team and ranks their playing minutes by whether they are a freshmen, sophomore, etc.  Based on actual playing time, St. Louis is playing the 2nd youngest team.  In fact, there are no juniors or seniors on the entire roster.

No kidding.

Despite this, they are 9-4 this year.  They started out 4-0, lost their next 3, and then have won 5 of their last 6 (all at home), including wins over respectable SIU, EIU and Belmont teams and a loss to a really good Missouri State team.

One thing is that (and I had to look twice to make sure this was right), this is only their second honest road game of the whole season!  How do we get that deal.  They lost @Georgia in their only road game of the year.  And while I don't think that AA will have an actual rocking environment tomorrow, I do think it St. Louis is not used to playing on the road.

Of course, we're not used to playing at home.

The calling card of this team is complete stifling defense.  They are allowing only 57 points per game, which is 11th in D1 basketball.  Teams are shooting only 37% against them (22nd in D1) and 26% from 3, which is 8th.  They are 8th in effective FG%.

Offensively, they are pretty much an average team, but they present a severe match up problem for us, because we have trouble scoring even under the best of circumstances, and this is probably the best defense we will play this year.

Coach Orr talks about trading baskets as "playing tag" and to beat the Billikens, BG will need to play reverse tag and trade stops with St. Louis in order to compete.

Kwamain Mitchell is their leading scorer at 16 points a game and Willie Reed is scoring at almost 14 points per game.  Reed is also grabbing 9.6 boards a game, so he's almost averaging a double-double.

They are not a big team.  Reed, at 6'9", is their tallest player.  They have three players under 6', I hope they get to bond with Jordan Crawford.

So, for all those reasons, I am really looking forward to tomorrow's game.  It will be a test for the Falcons, but a real chance to show what they can do on their home floor.