St. Louis closes its regular season with 86-57 loss to George Mason

Tom Timmermann, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Mar 7, 2026

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St. Louis University’s regular season ended with a resounding thud on Saturday, with the Billikens getting clobbered by George Mason, 86-57, in Fairfax, Va.

SLU, ranked No. 25 in the nation, though not for much longer, will have to share the Atlantic 10 title with VCU, though the Billikens will be No. 1 seed. SLU closes the season with three losses in its last six games. All of the losses came on the road. SLU closes the regular season at 27-4, 15-3.

George Mason had a 17-0 run in the second half that put an already one-sided game to rest. SLU trailed 71-43 with 7:56 to go, the most it had been behind all season. It was the fewest points SLU had scored all season and its worst 3-point shooting game, making just 4 of 24 for 16.7%.

The finish raises some issues about whether SLU would still be in contention for an at-large bid if it fails to win the conference tournament. A loss in its first game raises that level of concern even higher. If nothing else, SLU’s NCAA seed is going to put it at a big disadvantage in the first round.

SLU now knows its path in the Atlantic 10 Tournament, which starts on Wednesday at PPG Arena in Pittsburgh. SLU has a double bye directly to the quarterfinals, where it will face the winner of a game between the 8 and 9 seeds, Fordham and George Washington, at 10:30 a.m. Central on Friday. SLU beat Fordham, 78-56, in the regular season and struggled but beat George Washington, 79-76.

With a win, SLU would face any of four teams, No. 4 seed Dayton, No. 5 George Mason, No. 12 La Salle or No. 13 St. Bonaventure. St. Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt announced Saturday that he was retiring after this season. The top four seeds in the conference are SLU, VCU, St. Joseph’s and Dayton.

Dion Brown had 13 points for SLU and Kellen Thames had 10 as the only Billikens in double figures. Brown was the only starter to do much of anything. Quentin Jones was 1 for 7 from the field, Robbie Avila and Trey Green were each 1 for 5 and Amari McCottry was 2 for 9. SLU made just 9 of 28 shots in the second half and was 1 for 13 on 3-point tries after missing its first 10.

SLU trailed by nine at the half and never got closer in the second half.

Avila played just five minutes in the first half for SLU because of foul trouble. He had two fouls in the first 3:40 of the game. Coach Josh Schertz brought him back in with 12:56 to go in the half, but 51 seconds later, Avila got his third foul and spent the rest of the half on the bench. Avila had no shots and no rebounds in the first half.