No. 18 Saint Louis received a wake-up call ahead of its Atlantic 10 showdown with VCU on Friday night.
The Billikens (24-2, 12-1 A-10) saw their 18-game winning streak end with an 81-76 loss at Rhode Island on Tuesday night. Saint Louis turned the ball over 18 times, including 11in the first 9:33 of the game.
“I think it’s a bit of complacency,” Saint Louis guard Dion Brown said. “We’re 24-1, we think we’re a good team, and (Tuesday) showed that we weren’t as good as we thought. We come out of the mindset that, hey we’re going to win this game. It takes away from our preparation.”
Saint Louis will try to rebound when it hosts the red-hot Rams (21-6, 12-2) at Chaifetz Arena.
“It’s hard when you win 18 games in a row to maybe maintain the humility and hunger it takes to play your best,” Saint Louis coach Josh Schertz said. “But at the end of the day, that’s what championship teams are able to do. They’re able to continue to improve while they win. Maybe this is what we needed to reset ourselves and get back to the team that we’ve been for most of the season.”
VCU’s 89-75 victory over George Washington on Tuesday night extended its winning streak to 10 games and left it with a 45 NET ranking.
“It was buckling down at the defensive end,” VCU coach Phil Martelli Jr. said. “It was another of those games, if we guard, we’re going to win the game. And we did.”
The Billikens, who are 16-0 at home this season, have a 22 NET ranking after their loss.
“They’re obviously a great team,” Martelli said. “I think they are a second weekend NCAA Tournament team. We get to go there and play a meaningful, high-level game on Feb. 20th, like you can’t ask for any better than that.”
The Rams lost to the Billikens 71-62 on Jan. 7 at home. VCU shot 18-for-63 from the floor, including 6-for-24 from 3-point range in that game.
But Martelli believes the Rams have made strides since these teams first met.
“I think we’re a better defensive team certainly,” he said. “We’ve kind of gotten our legs to us and a kind of a rhythm to us that I think we were still searching for then.”
Both teams feature a nine-man playing rotation and balanced scoring. VCU guards Terrence Hill Jr. and Jadrian Tracey are both shooting 38.0% from 3-point range on high volumes.
Prior to losing at Rhode Island, Saint Louis led the NCAA Division I with an average scoring margin of 23 points. Through 25 games they ranked second in 3-point shooting with 40.9% accuracy.
The Billikens have seven players averaging at least 9.3 points per game this season, led by Robbie Avila (12.7 ppg), and nine players averaging at least 15.2 minutes per game.
But Schertz believes the group lost its edge this month.
“We’ve been playing with fire the last three or four games in terms of our execution and physicality and competitiveness,” Schertz said. “The things that were our superpowers have been our effort and our toughness and our execution and our connectedness.”
