Davidson Wildcats couldn’t tame St. Louis Billikens

Bob McKillop liked everything about his team.

Except how it executed.

“Our guys prepared very well for this game, I could not ask them to do more than they did in preparation. I thought their effort was outstanding,” said McKillop, Davidson’s coach. “It’s just our performance didn’t match our effort, and our performance didn’t match our preparation.”

The Davidson men’s basketball team was run over by a Saint Louis offense that reached heights unseen in recent history.

Saint Louis beat Davidson 96-87 in Atlantic-10 play Wednesday at Chaifetz Arena. The victory snapped Saint Louis’s three-game losing streak.

Its 96 points was the most Saint Louis has scored against any opponent since 2011. The Billikens hadn’t put up that many points against a conference opponent since they scored 98 against Loyola Chicago in 1991 as members of the Midwestern Collegiate Conference.

Saint Louis (7-11 overall, 2-4 league) got career-high nights from three starters including a pair of fresh faces that have injected life into this moribund program. Redshirt senior forward Ash Yacoubou scored a game-high 27 points and grabbed six rebounds. He connected on 12 of his 21 field goal and buried a pair of 3-pointers for Saint Louis’ first two baskets of the night. Sophomore point guard Aaron Hines, a former walkon, started for the second time and scored 18 points. Freshman shooting guard Jermaine Bishop, the A-10 Rookie of the Week last week, started his second game of his career and finished with 23 points.

Davidson (11-6, 3-3) was led by junior guard Jack Gibbs’ 26 points. He finished 8 of 22 from the field and 2 of 11 from behind the arc. As a team the Wildcats were 10-of-36 on 3-pointers.

Sophomore forward Peyton Aldridge had 15 points and 10 rebounds. Senior shooting guard Brian Sullivan scored 15 points and Sophomore forward Nathan Ekwu scored 10.

Davidson’s largest lead was 11 with 11 minutes and 30 seconds to play in the first half. From that point on Saint Louis outscored Davidson 81-61.

SLU led 47-46 at halftime when Bishop connected on a jump shot just before the horn. It gave Saint Louis a season-high for points in a first half and it is the most the Billikens have scored in a first half in the eight years they’ve called Chaifetz Arena home.

Saint Louis evened the all-time series with Davidson at 1-1.

Three who mattered

Ash Yacoubou: Saint Louis redshirt senior scored a career-high 27 points and set the tone early with back-to-back 3-pointers.

Jermaine Bishop: Saint Louis freshman started for the second time and scored a career-high 23 points including a jumper just before halftime to give the Billikens a 47-46 lead.

Jack Gibbs: Davidson’s star and the No. 3 scorer in the NCAA matched his average with 25 points but needed 22 shots to get it.

Observations

▪  In four of its six losses this season, Davidson has allowed opponents to score more than 90 points.

▪  Davidson lost by 10 despite hauling in 13 offensive rebounds and putting up 26 second chance points.

▪  Saint Louis had seven turnovers Wednesday to give it nine in its last two games.

▪  Saint Louis has won twice in its last 10 games. The Billikens last win was a 65-62 thriller against George Washington at home on Jan. 2.

▪  Davidson never got closer than five points in the final 90 seconds.

Worth mentioning

▪  Hines and Bishop played a combined 63 minutes. They had averaged 17 combined minutes entering Wednesday night’s game.

▪  Saint Louis gave up a record 92 points to George Mason in its previous game at home.

▪  Davidson still has just one road win this season, a 109-74 win at Charlotte on December 1.

▪  The Wildcats continue remain on the road when they travel to Richmond for a 12:30 p.m. on Saturday.

They said it

I’m kind of speechless in a way. They’ve both played two great games with no fear. They kept attacking and took what the defense gave them. Without them two we wouldn’t win. – Ash Yacoubou on Hines and Bishop’s expanded roles.

I think bad offense creates bad defense. I think our bad offense after we built a nine point lead all of a sudden we got a little bit too easy about shooting some shots. I thought those shot decisions led to them getting easy baskets. When they got their easy baskets in transition, it led to them getting confidence. They got confidence and all of a sudden it caught fire and carried forward in the second half. – Bob McKillop on Davidson’s offense fueling Saint Louis’ explosive night.

They were physical. They got into us. We have to realize that will happen in some games and we have to fight through it. We have play our system and we got away from that today. – Jack Gibbs on what Saint Louis did to make Davidson miserable Wednesday night.

This story was originally published January 20, 2016 at 11:31 PM with the headline "Davidson Wildcats couldn’t tame St. Louis Billikens."