The plane carrying SLU's basketball team landed in St. Louis at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, the end of a quick and celebratory trip home from Cincinnati, where a few hours earlier the team snapped Xavier's 43-game home conference winning streak with a 73-68 victory.
"I just kept telling everybody it was a happy flight," said senior Kyle Cassity, giving full credit to the Cardinals for the slogan. "That's a win I've been waiting for since I've been here, and that's the first time Brian (Conklin) and I beat Xavier, home or away. It's a place not very many people win. ... I'll go 0 for the rest of my life if we play games like that."
For the next 15 hours, some of which were spent sleeping, the team could enjoy the win, but the celebration officially ended at 2:30 p.m. Thursday when coach Rick Majeurs and the team reconvened in Chaifetz Arena for practice to get ready for the game today at UMass.
"He congratulated us on a great game, and then said that game is over and we've got to look at the next one," Cassity said. "This team's on top of the conference with us, tied for first. It's another good road test. If we get this one, it will set us up well if we come off this road trip with two wins."
Center Rob Loe said: "We put that (win) in the past. It was a good win, but we're moving on to the next game."
SLU (16-4) will need to be focused in an unlikely showdown for the league lead. SLU and UMass are two of the five teams at 4-2 in Atlantic 10 play (Dayton, La Salle and St. Bonaventure are the others) and UMass was the preseason pick to finish 12th in the league.
UMass has gotten where it is thanks to a perfect 10-0 record at home, though its schedule hasn't been overwhelmingly difficult. UMass was off Wednesday, so it has had a week to get ready while SLU had about 35 hours on the ground in St. Louis between games (which included two practices) before making its second plane flight of week Friday morning.
Though SLU hadn't beaten Xavier since 2007, the situation the team is in today in Amherst, Mass., is one they're familiar with. After SLU won the 76 Classic in Anaheim, Calif., in November, it played at Loyola Marymount two days later and, in a flat effort, suffered its first loss of the season. Majerus admits scheduling that game was a mistake because the team was primed for a letdown.
"I told my assistants I'm going to fire the guy who made the schedule, which was me," he said.
But now, that loss might provide an unexpected benefit. SLU is coming off an emotional high and needs to think about what's next instead of what's last.
"We can't look back at (the win at Xavier) and reminisce too long because there's another (game) two days away," Cassity said. "Anaheim was a good win and everyone was excited about it, so maybe we relaxed a little bit, and thought we were better than we were. Maybe we've learned from that. Hopefully, we have because this is the same exact setting, and we can't go into UMass and lay an egg there."
The teams at the top of the A-10 have done it mostly by staying unbeaten at home and slipping in a road win. SLU's the only exception. It has gotten there by winning twice on the road, something only one other A-10 team, Temple, has done.
Even if the team can't rest on the Xavier game, it can take one thing from it: proof that this team can win tough games.
"It was a confidence boost for us," Loe said. "We had that stretch where we lost a couple games and I think we're getting back into our stride now. We're back to where we were in LA. It's really good."
"I just kept telling everybody it was a happy flight," said senior Kyle Cassity, giving full credit to the Cardinals for the slogan. "That's a win I've been waiting for since I've been here, and that's the first time Brian (Conklin) and I beat Xavier, home or away. It's a place not very many people win. ... I'll go 0 for the rest of my life if we play games like that."
For the next 15 hours, some of which were spent sleeping, the team could enjoy the win, but the celebration officially ended at 2:30 p.m. Thursday when coach Rick Majeurs and the team reconvened in Chaifetz Arena for practice to get ready for the game today at UMass.
"He congratulated us on a great game, and then said that game is over and we've got to look at the next one," Cassity said. "This team's on top of the conference with us, tied for first. It's another good road test. If we get this one, it will set us up well if we come off this road trip with two wins."
Center Rob Loe said: "We put that (win) in the past. It was a good win, but we're moving on to the next game."
SLU (16-4) will need to be focused in an unlikely showdown for the league lead. SLU and UMass are two of the five teams at 4-2 in Atlantic 10 play (Dayton, La Salle and St. Bonaventure are the others) and UMass was the preseason pick to finish 12th in the league.
UMass has gotten where it is thanks to a perfect 10-0 record at home, though its schedule hasn't been overwhelmingly difficult. UMass was off Wednesday, so it has had a week to get ready while SLU had about 35 hours on the ground in St. Louis between games (which included two practices) before making its second plane flight of week Friday morning.
Though SLU hadn't beaten Xavier since 2007, the situation the team is in today in Amherst, Mass., is one they're familiar with. After SLU won the 76 Classic in Anaheim, Calif., in November, it played at Loyola Marymount two days later and, in a flat effort, suffered its first loss of the season. Majerus admits scheduling that game was a mistake because the team was primed for a letdown.
"I told my assistants I'm going to fire the guy who made the schedule, which was me," he said.
But now, that loss might provide an unexpected benefit. SLU is coming off an emotional high and needs to think about what's next instead of what's last.
"We can't look back at (the win at Xavier) and reminisce too long because there's another (game) two days away," Cassity said. "Anaheim was a good win and everyone was excited about it, so maybe we relaxed a little bit, and thought we were better than we were. Maybe we've learned from that. Hopefully, we have because this is the same exact setting, and we can't go into UMass and lay an egg there."
The teams at the top of the A-10 have done it mostly by staying unbeaten at home and slipping in a road win. SLU's the only exception. It has gotten there by winning twice on the road, something only one other A-10 team, Temple, has done.
Even if the team can't rest on the Xavier game, it can take one thing from it: proof that this team can win tough games.
"It was a confidence boost for us," Loe said. "We had that stretch where we lost a couple games and I think we're getting back into our stride now. We're back to where we were in LA. It's really good."
