(St. Louis, MO) – “Yay though I go through the valley of death…” could be the words written on Jim Crews’ white board. Saint Louis U played their fourth of seven games against various ‘Valley Schools’ when they hosted UT-Martin Wednesday, and lost for the third time in four regular season games.
The season started with an exhibition win against the Great Lakes Valley’s UM-St. Louis and game three was a road win at the Ohio Valley’s Southern Illinois Edwardsville. After three straight losses to Missouri Valley power Wichita State, and two OVC teams, Morehead State and UT-Martin, the Bills will play their next two games against MVC members Indiana State and Southern Illinois Carbondale.
Mike Crawford – slubillikens.com
How SLU has fared against the ‘Valleys’ tells us a lot about how they could compete in the A-10. SlU is 5-4 and the game with Indiana State is Saturday night.
SLU is in need of a ‘Leading Man’. Like a good ensamble TV show, the Billikens have a lot of nice pieces, but Crews is still looking for a star to lead the way. ‘Cheers’ had wonderful characters in Norm, Carla, Coach and others, but without Sam Malone it was just a story about some loveable losers.
Similarly the Billikens have nice role players. Mike Crawford can hit some threes, Miles Reynolds is an adequate distributor and a sometimes scorer and Milik Yarbrough can leap, but in this reporter’s opinion the Bills are waiting for Ash Yacoubou to take over the team.
During a furious come back attempt against UT-Martin, Yacoubou, who was scoreless in the first half, scored eight second half points and helped the Bills shave a 23 point deficit down to three. I keep waiting for Yacoubou to play a featured role that would high light is driving and jumping abilities.
The SLU modified motion offense doesn’t lend itself to featuring one player over another, but someone needs to get a chance to shine, and I believe Yacoubou is your best option. Reynolds could be that guy too. He had a stellar second half against UT-Martin and a great first half against Wichita State.
As the only senior on the Billiken roster, it could be time for Ash Yacoubou to take the lead as Saint Louis battles two more MVC teams.
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