Yesterday (Nov. 21), Lorenzo Romar's St. Louis University Billikens improved their record to 3-0 with a 84-72 win over UNC-Asheville.

With the Bills holding an 18 point lead at half-time, the game was never really in doubt.

Asheville, who gave Quin Snyder's Mizzou squad a better game the night before, seemed overmatched by SLU's inside-outside combinations that were no doubt unfamiliar to the nearly twelve thousand fans in attendance at Kiel Center.

For starters, consider freshman point guard Marque Perry (5).

In twenty-five minutes of playing time (17 pts, 6 assists and 2 turnovers), in only his third college game, Perry showed signs of being a very good college basketball player. Just a shade over six feet, Perry's quickness is matched by his awareness of what needs to be done when he gets to his destination.

To use a hockey analogy, Perry is no Bret Hedican. A Spoonhour recruit, Marque Perry may, in time, turn out to be a marquee basketball player (pronunciations the same).

Equally as impressive, though, were the performances of Andrew Latimer (14) and Chris Braun (52)...two more freshmen.

Latimer, an Aussie, is listed at 6-9 and 220...but hit on both of his three-point attempts (see below). One wonders if Spoonhour...who presumably was watching the game on TV somewhere, out of habit looked to his left in search of a replacement, feeling the urge to pull the big guy out of the game!

And all Braun did was score 14 points (on 5 of 9 shooting) and grab 6 rebounds...in 26 minutes of action.

Braun's workload was necessitated by the absence of Matt Baniak, who sat out the game with a sprained ankle.

And yet another newcomer, JC transfer Maurice Jeffers (31, above), looked like a stronger version of last year's wing standout, Vergil Cobben.

So things are looking up in Billiken land. And the pre-Jan 1 portion of the Bills schedule really heats up in mid-December, with back-to-back games with Mizzou (Dec. 12) and Cincinnati (Dec. 16).

We'll know more by then about the Billikens, and about Lorenzo Romar, too.