19. Saint Louis (23-1)
They did lose that game to Stanford in late November, but you could certainly argue that this Saint Louis team is the best true mid-major in the nation. The Billikens have taken care of their business at virtually every point in the season, with impressive showings on offense and lockdown defense just the same. Josh Schertz has put together a monster just two years after doing the same at Indiana State, and his monster has just kept pushing forward.
Although they trailed by five at the half, Saint Louis used a strong second half to win 91-82 in a great game at Davidson. Bradly Dunlap led with 22 points off the bench while Robbie Avila added 17 points and 6 assists. The Billikens were impressive after halftime once again on Saturday, taking care of La Salle for an 82-58 win. Ishan Sharma had 15 points off the bench while Quentin Jones and Amari McCottry put up 13 points apiece.
We just named five different Billikens and there’s other talent as well contributing on this team. Their 11-0 conference start shows what we already knew, that this team is the class of the A-10 and one of the nation’s most successful teams to date. They’ve certainly been challenged and aren’t in this position by accident, but we’ll see if they get a surprise out of Loyola Chicago next week.