Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Saint Louis will need some of six-man recruiting class to step up in 2014-15

Jim Crews

Saint Louis interim head coach Jim Crews watches from the sidelines during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Santa Clara Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

AP

Saint Louis lost five experienced seniors from a 2014 NCAA Tournament team and they’ll need some of its six-man incoming freshman class to make an impact in the 2014-15 season.

In an interesting read from Tom Timmerman of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Billikens already have their six freshman on campus for summer sessions and the program is trying to get the new guys acclimated as quickly as possible.

Joining Saint Louis this season are guards Davell Roby, Marcus Bartley and Miles Reynolds, wing Malik Yarbrough, forward Brett Jolly and center Austin Gillman.

While every program initiates freshmen by putting them in the weight room and helping them learn terminology, senior members of the team are also helping cook for the team’s freshmen and teaching them about proper nutrition:

The freshmen are by no means alone in knowing they will be counted on. The team’s veterans also know it, which is why, for instance, senior Grandy Glaze has taken to cooking for his new teammates, trying to turn them on to the beauties of grilled chicken over fried chicken, of brown rice over white rice.

“They’re puppies,” Glaze said. “You have to feed your puppies.”


The puppies quote is one of the better quotes I’ve seen in quite some time, but Glaze is right. As Timmerman notes, no Saint Louis freshman has played over 180 minutes in a season in the last three years, so this will be a bit of a change for the Billikens with almost half of the roster entering as wide-eyed newcomers.

Expectations probably aren’t as high for Saint Louis as the past few seasons, but the year will be made much easier if some of the freshmen can start helping right away.

Follow @phillipshoops