SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - Three days before St. Louis University played its season-opening game on Monday, coach Josh Schertz sat in his office and talked about the journey that lay ahead.
"Every season, I think it surprises you, it challenges you, it stretches you in different ways," he said.
It did not take long for that first challenge to arrive. With 4 minutes, 36 seconds to go in the second half of what turned out to be an 85-78 loss to Santa Clara at the Sanford Pentagon, Robbie Avila, the centerpiece of SLU's game, drove to the basket and, after he jumped to pass to Gibson Jimerson, who made a 3-pointer, Avila landed wrong on his right ankle and it twisted under his weight. Avila fell to the floor underneath the basket and stayed there, in pain, with his hands covering his face, before being helped to the dressing room, each arm around a member of the medical staff, with his right foot making no contact with the court. He returned to the bench for the final minute, his shoe off and an ice bag taped to his ankle.
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After the game, Schertz said that Avila had sprained the same ankle he had sprained on Sept. 27 in a scrimmage and that, "It doesn't look great." It was too soon to know the severity of the sprain, but the last time it happened, it was 3½ weeks before Avila was practicing again. If he missed a similar amount of time this time, he would miss seven nonconference games and get five nonconference games in before Atlantic 10 play begins. SLU's next game is Sunday at home against Avila, an NAIA school in Kansas City.
"It seems pretty similar to the first time, same ankle, same situation," Schertz said. "I don't know if it's Grade 1, Grade 2 or more significant. They gotta evaluate that when we get back. Hopefully it's not. But he's obviously pretty distressed. It's been a tough fall for him. He missed a chunk of time with his back, got back, and then sprained his ankle. I thought, honestly, in the first half, I didn't think his timing, his rhythm were great. I thought the second half, he was starting to play a little better, look more like himself. And then he goes down with the ankle and your heart breaks for him because the kid loves to play basketball, he's all about the right things, and he worked hard to get back and then, just a fluke play under the basket. ... There's a chance we'll be without him for a period of time. We've got a lot of games to play and we got to figure it out without him until he's back."
"We just know that we have to rally around each other," said guard Kellen Thames, who scored 16 points in an emergency starting role because another Billiken, Kobe Johnson, was out with a shoulder injury that doesn't appear to be long-term. "We've lost a big piece to our team but we know that we all have to step up our games."
Avila finished with 16 points (making just one of four 3-point shots), five rebounds and five assists but also had four turnover. Avila, who SLU's offense runs through, is not easily replaceable, though Swope thinks they can handle it.
"The good thing with our offense is everybody is interchangeable," said Swope, who finished with a game-high 24 points, 19 of them in the second half when he hit 5 of 9 3-pointers. "Obviously with Robbie, he has a unique skill set, he's throwing backdoor passes where it looks crazy and people are catching it for wide-open layups. Obviously, that's going to be hard to replace, but from a standpoint of, everybody touched the ball on our offense, everybody can move around and be interchangeable. While it will look different a little bit, at the same time, we'll be OK."
Amazingly, SLU almost managed to pull the game out, even after Avila was hurt. Jimerson hit the 3 on the play Avila got hurt to pull SLU within four points. After a 3-pointer by Isaiah Swope with 2:37 to play, SLU trailed 81-78. Santa Clara missed shots on each of its next two possession, but SLU, with a chance to tie or get within one, did the same thing. Santa Clara got the ball back with 1:16 to play and had the possession that doomed SLU. Santa Clara missed, but got an offensive rebound, missed again, but got another offensive rebound. On the first one, Thames had the rebound but a Santa Clara player forced a held ball and the possession arrow gave the ball back to Santa Clara. Two free throws for the Broncos with 19.4 seconds left made it tough for SLU.
Those offensive rebounds were one of the stats Schertz pointed to after the game. Santa Clara had 15 offensive rebounds and turned them into 17 points. SLU committed 17 turnovers, which Santa Clara turned into 14 points. In a seven-point game, that more than made the difference.
"The offensive rebounds down the stretch, that's the story of the game," Schertz said. "We turned the ball over 17 times, which is ridiculous, and we give up 15 offensive rebounds and they get 10 more shots than us. You can't beat a good team, an NCAA Tournament-caliber team like Santa Clara, if you allow 10 more shots than you have, and that's what happened today. ... We've got to be better throughout the game."
With Johnson out with a shoulder injury suffered in practice on Saturday, Schertz made limited use of his bench. Other than the starters, he brought only Larry Hughes II, Josiah Dotzler and AJ Casey off the bench, and only Hughes in the second half until the final seconds. The bench produced zero points with only Hughes, who was 0 for 5, taking a shot.
"When you take Kobe out of the lineup, that's one of the bench guys right there" becoming a starter, Schertz said. "I got to get more guys that can play at that level. That's on us to develop more guys that can compete in there. I thought AJ actually did some things in his minutes, but when we had a bunch of guys with two fouls (in the first half) and I sat them, we were up 33-28 and the game started to get away a little bit and I had to go back with those guys and play them with two fouls. I've got to get more guys that can compete in a game like that."
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