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ST. LOUIS – Saint Louis head men’s basketball coach Rick Majerus today announced that Porter Moser will join the Billiken men’s basketball staff as an assistant coach. The former Creighton guard was the head coach at Illinois State from 2003-04 to 2006-07 after a three-year stint as the head coach at Arkansas-Little Rock.

ST. LOUIS – Saint Louis University President Lawrence Biondi, S.J., announced today that Rick Majerus will be the new Billikens head men’s basketball coach. Prior to working as a college basketball analyst for ESPN for the last three years, Majerus amassed a 422-147 career head coaching record and took his teams to the postseason 15 times.

The University will hold an on-campus news conference at 10 a.m. Monday, April 30, to formally announce Majerus’ appointment. The news conference will be held in Busch Student Center, 20 N. Grand Blvd.

ST. LOUIS – Saint Louis University head men’s basketball coach Brad Soderberg today announced that 6-foot-4 small forward Anthony Mitchell (East St. Louis, Ill. / East St. Louis) has signed a National Letter of Intent to attend the University and play basketball for the Billikens. He will have four years of eligibility beginning with the 2007-08 academic year.

Thoughts, thoughts, and more thoughts: UNC owned Clemson from the opening tip. Thankfully Clemson can block shots, otherwise the Heels would have won by 40. Even decent basketball fans have probably never heard of anybody on Clemson. The same can be said for Air Force, but every other team has a name player or a guy whose gotten some pub during the season (like Aj Graves on Butler.) This isn't necessarily a bad thing though. Good stories about how hard UNC's practice was after losing to Va Tech. That practice was probably better than just about any game you'll ever see.

Tyler Hansbrough's still putting up good numbers, but I get the sense his draft stock is dropping just about every week. Every time he shoots the ball from his waist, you can see a scout cringing.

Maryland's win in the Coaches vs Cancer Classic finals should catapult them into the top 25 for the first time this season. I dont necessarily know if Maryland will be better than Michigan State or Texas at the end of the season.. but this shows you what a team with three senior starters can do to start a season. For the Terps, like Texas and Michigan State as well, point guard play will go a long way in determining future success. Greivis Vasquez, Drew Neitzel, and DJ Augustin all impressed this week. The freshman Vasquez was perhaps the most surprising and ultimately got the W's. Neitzel is the veteran of these three, and looks noticeably stronger and more mature this season. Augustin in the end might be the best of those three. The high school All-American often dribbles around too much and needs to do a better job running the offense, but his ability to get into the lane and finish is simply unteachable and gives Texas an edge on most teams.

Saint Louis has the talent to make a run at their first NCAA Tournament bid in seven years.

New writer Nick Fasulo previews the upper tier of what should be an extremely competitive Atlantic 10 season.  Teams are listed in order of projected finish, followed by a projection of the All-Conference team.

 

1) Xavier

Three years removed from their astonishing run to the Elite 8, Xavier looks as though they may be ready to make another deep run come March.  They have one of the most balanced rotations in the country that will feature eight to nine players.  Xavier returns three starters (seniors Justin Cage and Justin Doellman; and junior Stanley Burrell).  Most importantly however for Xavier will be point guard transfer Drew Lavender.  A former McDonalds All-American, Lavender is ready for a fresh start back in his home state of Ohio.  Lavender’s amazing quickness and vision will undoubtedly increase Xavier’s team scoring numbers and lead to many open shots. 

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