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Byline: Stu Durando
IOWA CITY, Iowa _ In the one day St. Louis University had between its lopsided loss to Southeast Missouri State and a game against No. 16 Iowa, coach Brad Soderberg emphasized the most basic tenets of his philosophy.
He stopped picking apart every aspect of SLU's poor performances and gave the Billikens a couple of simple goals, similar to his earliest days as the team's coach. What he received in return was SLU's best outing and a sliver of hope that emerged from a 67-58 loss at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Friday night.
"We just decided as a staff that we were going to start over and get back to the things we established the program on 2{ years ago," Soderberg said. "We want to be solid with the ball and defend the lane area to make it hard for people to get in. Once we get good at that again, then we'll worry about the next step."
A game that figured to produce an early New Year's Eve celebration for Iowa and a none-too-soon good riddance to 2004 for SLU provided some unexpected drama.
Playing without two starters, the slumping Billikens pushed the Hawkeyes to the limit, but Iowa's Pierre Pierce asserted himself down the stretch and scored a game-high 24 points.
SLU (2-10) led part of the second half and trailed by one point with seven minutes remaining before the Hawkeyes (12-1) went on a 10-0 run. Pierce, a 6-foot-4 junior guard, scored six in that stretch as Iowa went up 61-51 with 3:35 remaining.