Watching the Billikids achieve their first road victory of the season on Wednesday night at Duquesne made the day-long ordeal to get to the game worthwhile.
As many of you now know, my broadcast partner Bob Ramsey and I were stranded in the St. Louis airport for much of Wednesday. Our flight was supposed to leave St. Louis at 10 a.m. We were actually on the runway getting ready to take off when we were forced to turn and go back to the gate when some trouble with the plane's computer system was discovered.
We were poised to take a later flight into Pittsburgh, but that also got cancelled. Meanwhile, our original plane was taken to the hangar for repairs. At that time, Rammer and I looked at the prospect of not getting to Pittsburgh at all.
Anyway, they fixed the problem with the first plane and we boarded about 3:45 p.m. However, a few other issues came up and we sat at the gate for another 30 minutes or so.
At that time, we thought there was no way we could make it to the game on time. About 4:30 p.m., we considered getting off the plane and going home. But, we decided to stick it out. We finally took off about about 4:45 STL time, which would have put us in Pittsburgh at close to 7 p.m. eastern time, which was right around tip-off time.
After we landed, Rammer and I flew through the airport, got a cab, and raced into town. We arrived at the arena during the third media time-out with about eight minutes left in the first half.
We just put on our headphones and started talking as soon as the action started again. To add to our frustration, our boys started to turn the ball over and Duquesne went on a 8-0 run to take the lead and control of the game.
However, the boys came back strong in the second half and actually led by seven minutes left with four minutes left in regulation. However, give the Dukes credit for coming back and forcing the extra sessions.
In all, it was another typical SLU-Duquesne game. Since joining the A-10, some of most hotly contested games have been against the Dukes. I think this was our third overtime game with them in the past four seasons.
Kyle Cassity (pictured) was really clutch on this night with 15 points, on 6 of 7 shooting from the field and three for four from 3-point land. Kyle really played with a lot of confidence offensively and it showed in his results. His floor game is solid, but when he puts his mind to it that he wants to get something done on offense, he can score. He just has to be of that mindset more often. Boy, if we can bottle up what KC did in Pittsburgh for the rest of the season....
Cody Ellis was good again with 14 points, 11 rebounds and four assists. What I most like about this young man is that he makes everyone around him better. He can really pass the ball, space the floor and create opportunities for others. He has so many dimensions to his game that you can now do a lot of different things.
I'm going to enjoy the high-lows to Willie for the next three seasons, incuding the rest of this one. Willie returned to the lineup with nine points and four rebounds.
When you guard Cody in the high post, it's high-low time. When you slack off to double team Willie before he catches the ball, Cody flashes to the high post for an easy 15 footer. The pick and pop for the 3-pointer is always in play, plus he can post up as well.
Kwamain was big once again when we needed it. His offense was AWOL for much of the game, but he came on strong down the stretch, finishing with 19 points. When it's time to win the game, Kwamain just kicks it into another gear.
Jon Smith turned in another solid game off the bench with eight rebounds (five offensive) and four blocks in 19 minutes. Jon is also seeing time at the "three" spot, allowing us to play three bigs at one time.
Jon is long and athletic enough to guard opposing three men on defense, while Cody plays the three on offense because of his versatile skill set. It gives the team a little more flexibility and depth as well.
For the second game, everyone did something positive to contribute to this victory. I am very impressed to see this young team start to grow up a little. They have found ways to win two consecutive conference games, which should build confidence.
The youngsters displayed a lot of mental toughness in getting this win against an athletic Dukes' team that was desparate for a league win after dropping their first two A-10 contests. Duquesne played with great urgency in getting to the free throw line 36 times and ravaging us with 23 offensive rebounds.
Even with all of that, the Billikids managed to stay together and pull off their first road victory. It was worth the day-long ordeal to get to Pittsburgh and see this happen in person.
I'm suddenly looking forward to this weekend's trip to Charlotte. Make no mistake about it, Charlotte will pose another stern test to the Billikids, but I'm look forward to seeing this group continue to grow.
We still have a challenging stretch coming up this month with three of our next four on the road, but I think we have a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks. We could be interesting.
Talk to you this weekend.
Go Bills.
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