Josh Schertz has pushed Saint Louis back into the NCAA Tournament conversation at the exact moment the Billikens looked most vulnerable—sliding late, absorbing a 29-point regular-season loss, then showing real fight in the Atlantic 10 tournament. Now the program heads to Buffalo as a 9-seed for its first tournament game since 2019, facing 8-seed Georgia in a matchup that looks competitive on paper. The tension is simple: can Saint Louis recover its early-season sharpness quickly enough to turn a winnable draw into a statement?
Why Saint Louis matters right now: a return, a résumé, and a tight margin
Saint Louis enters the 2026 NCAA Tournament at 28-5, taking an at-large bid and making its 11th appearance in the Division I field. The Billikens’ path into the bracket included an 88-81 win over George Washington in the Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament, followed by a 70-69 loss to Dayton in the semifinals. That narrow defeat, paired with the recent pattern of uneven finishes, frames the immediate question facing the roster in Buffalo: which version of Saint Louis shows up when the stakes are highest?
The season arc contains both dominance and wobble. Saint Louis began 24-1, with the lone loss coming by one point to Stanford, then went 3-3 in its last six games and closed the regular season with a 29-point blowout loss to George Mason. In the Atlantic 10 tournament, the Billikens fell behind George Washington 28-4 in the first half and trailed by as many as 21 before rallying for the 88-81 comeback. The Dayton game swung in the second half when Saint Louis went cold and allowed an 18-2 run, before a frantic final stretch of near game-winners without a whistle.
Those snapshots matter because they establish the thin line between “dangerous” and “done”—and because tournament basketball punishes teams that cannot stabilize possessions with rebounding and stops.
Josh Schertz’s second-year inflection point: winning now while building later
In his second season leading the Saint Louis program—after being named head coach in April 2024—Josh Schertz has already authored a sharp year-over-year jump. The Billikens finished 19-15 in his first season, then surpassed 25 wins this year and returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019. His prior head coaching experience dates back to 2008 at Lincoln Memorial, where he went to 10 NCAA Division II Tournaments in 13 years, then moved to Indiana State and went 66-40 from 2021 to 2024, including a 32–7 record in 2023-24.
Beyond results, the current moment also carries an institutional signal. Schertz agreed to a lucrative extension that is described as showing Saint Louis University’s commitment to NIL and revenue sharing. That matters not as a talking point, but as a practical factor in roster continuity: in modern college basketball, keeping systems intact often determines whether tournament appearances become a trend or a one-off.
Still, the Buffalo task is immediate and specific. Saint Louis arrives after a late-season stretch that included a 4-4 finish in its final games, and a ranking of 109 on T-Rank for games since February 1. Those data points do not guarantee anything in a single game, but they underline why margins—shots, rebounds, transition defense—become decisive.
Five pressure points in Buffalo: style, stops, and the Avila axis
Saint Louis’ identity can look overwhelming when it is functioning. The Billikens play a “breathless” style: no team in the tournament took less time on its possessions this year, none shot better from three-point range, and nobody took its average two-point shot closer to the rim. That blend—fast decisions, elite three-point accuracy, and rim pressure—can force opponents into mistakes and bad matchups. But to unlock it against Georgia, Saint Louis must win five interconnected battles:
- Defense first, then finish the possession. The core winning formula is explicit: get stops—and then rebound after the stops—so Georgia cannot set up full-court pressure.
- Rebounding under stress. Saint Louis’ rebounding has not looked strong “the past month and a half, ” and Georgia’s Somto Cyril is described as a hyper-athletic big who can hurt opponents on the offensive boards.
- Handling pace and athleticism. Georgia plays at a lightning fast pace and has “a ton of athleticism, ” a profile that can punish teams that lose their spacing or fail to get back in transition.
- Guard shotmaking versus perimeter containment. Georgia’s guard trio—Jeremiah Wilkinson, Smurf Millender, and Blue Cain—is described as big-time shotmakers, raising the cost of defensive breakdowns.
- The Robbie Avila matchup problem. Saint Louis’ best player is senior center Robbie Avila, a big man who can pass and shoot. His floor spacing could be “massive” in pulling Cyril away from rim protection and opening driving and screening angles.
The connective tissue is tempo control. Saint Louis can play fast, but it also must play clean. Giving Georgia second chances or live-ball runouts is not merely a “hustle” issue; it can decide whether Saint Louis gets to its preferred early offense, where its shooting and inside-out balance are most threatening.
Expert perspectives: what analysts highlight ahead of the first-round test
Two themes recur in the analysis surrounding Saint Louis’ entry into March: resilience under fire and the difficulty of sustaining high-variance styles without foundational defense and rebounding.
Jack Godar, who covers Saint Louis University for A10Talk, frames the matchup in practical terms: the Billikens must “get stops—and then rebound the ball after they get the stops—so Georgia can’t set up their full-court pressure. ” He adds that “a week of practice for Josh Schertz could be valuable” in helping the team move past its late-season “doldrums, ” and points to Avila’s spacing as a potential counter to elite rim protection.
Separately, the recent Atlantic 10 tournament offered a case study in Saint Louis’ volatility. The comeback from 21 down against George Washington displayed a capacity to stabilize when the game looked lost. And the tight finish against Dayton—after surrendering an 18-2 run—showed how quickly rhythm can disappear, and how narrow the window becomes when shots stop falling.
These observations are not predictions. They clarify what is knowable from the Billikens’ recent body of work: when the pace, spacing, and shooting align, Saint Louis can feel like a problem; when stops and rebounds fail, the style can become fragile.
What a win would mean: history, credibility, and the next question for Josh Schertz
Historically, Saint Louis owns a 6-11 overall record in the Division I NCAA Tournament, with six listed Big Dance wins spanning from 1952 to 2014. This year’s return is not just a bracket footnote; it is a test of whether a new-era program identity can translate under the sport’s most unforgiving spotlight.
A first-round win in Buffalo would validate the Billikens’ season-long statistical profile—elite three-point shooting, quick possessions, and close-range two-point attempts—while also rewarding the resilience shown in the Atlantic 10 tournament. A loss would not erase the season’s accomplishments, but it would intensify the offseason focus on the very areas emphasized in the Georgia scouting: defensive consistency and rebounding reliability.
In that sense, the first-round game functions like a referendum on readiness rather than talent. Josh Schertz has already delivered the return to March; the next step is proving that Saint Louis can impose its style when the opponent’s pace, pressure, and athleticism are designed to take that choice away. If the Billikens do rediscover their early-season form in Buffalo, how far can that version of Saint Louis realistically carry them?
