Freshman Amari McCottry has seized his opportunity for playing time with SLU

So what did St. Louis University coach Josh Schertz learn from a busy week of basketball with three games in six days?

“Probably not to schedule three games in six days again,” he said.

This week will seem like a breeze compared to last week with three games in seven days — “Yeah, it’s a little better,” Schertz said — starting with a game with Jackson State on Monday night at Chaifetz Arena.

SLU (4-2) went 2-1 in its busiest stretch of the season, losing to Wichita State in Kansas City and then beating Quinnipiac and Massachusetts Lowell. After Jackson State, this run of games includes the team’s first true road contest, against San Francisco on Thursday, and then a home game against Chicago State on Sunday.

“I think we’ve learned a lot,” Schertz said. “I think we’ve grown a lot as a team. I mean, these experiences, we’ve talked about how competition, it sharpens your blade, it makes you better. It pushes you.”

There were lessons learned in SLU’s three games, but the search for some kind of continuity and depth keeps getting spoiled by injuries. The three-in-six stretch started with guard Josiah Dotzler tearing knee ligaments and being lost for the season. Forward AJ Casey hurt his ankle and missed all three games. And starting guard Kellen Thames missed most of the second half of one game and all of the second half of another because of a recurring battle with cramps that looks to be an ongoing struggle.

The situations with Dotzler and Thames, as well as Larry Hughes II spending the second half on the bench against UMass Lowell, have opened a door for freshman Amari McCottry. He played almost 25 minutes on Wednesday, his most at SLU, and they came in a game that went down to the final buzzer. He had eight points and seven rebounds, including a key one with 44 seconds left.

As Schertz has said, it’s more important to a coach who’s on the court at the end of the game than the beginning and McCottry was out there in the closing minutes.

“He’s had an opportunity with Josiah and then with Kellen,” Schertz said. “He’s really had to step into roles. And I thought he was really good. He’s trying. That’s the thing with Amari, he’s starting to compete, and he’s starting to figure it out, and he’s starting to understand the game, the level of intensity, the level of detail you need to be a good player. This guy in high school could coast by with no details and probably playing half-speed. And he won a couple state championships and was all-world.

“And so we have to decode him, to teach him what basketball is at this level, that you can’t just jog out and play half speed and have no idea what’s going on either end of the floor and just win on your talent.”

Hughes didn’t play the second half against UMass Lowell. On SLU’s final possession of the first half, it worked for the last shot. Hughes shot with nine seconds left, missed and then UMass Lowell came down and scored, so what could have been a 17-point halftime lead instead was 12. After the horn, Schertz came on the court and talked to Hughes, but he said that play wasn’t why Hughes didn’t play in the second half.

“No, no, no, no,” he said. “That wasn’t just Larry. I mean, Larry let the guy run behind him and I think there’s a little bit of, like, I thought the shot was going in too, it went three-quarters of the way down, did bounce out, everybody gets a little deflated when you miss a shot, but you got to play the next play. He let a guy get behind him, but that guy didn’t even make the layup. That guy chunked the layup. And then (Gibson Jimerson) didn’t sprint back, and the other guy did, and that guy got the rebound layup.

“So it was partially on Larry, partially on Gib to get back, and really, other guys should have gotten back as well. Wasn’t just Larry or Gib it was a team-wide deal. In the second half, I felt like we had to go with our best defensive players because they’re so talented offensively. Amari and Kobe (Johnson) give us off the bench our two best defenders on the perimeter. And so that’s why.

“There’s nothing with Larry in terms of benching him for that. Larry’s going to play. He’s going to, I think, play a really significant role for us. And in his shots, I think he’s got a chance to impact the game. And more than just shooting, and that’s what we’ve talked about for him, is taking care of the ball, taking great shots and really competing his tail off defensively. And if he does those things, he’s going to play a major role for this team.”

While Schertz has talked about SLU’s strength of schedule being better than most people think, this game Monday isn’t one of them. Jackson State is 0-7, ranked 333rd out of 364 teams on KenPom.com. All seven of its games so far have been on the road (as are its remaining nonconference games) and have been against some pretty good teams — such as Houston and Kentucky, with Iowa State still to come.

Meanwhile, Jimerson goes into the game needing 33 points to break Anthony Bonner’s school career scoring record. He’s averaging 19.2 points per game, so at that rate, it’s likely to happen in San Francisco.