Big man's the same but the campus is different

ST. LOUIS -- The sweater is a different color, but the person inside it, working the sidelines, is the same.

Rick Majerus is back. Not Michael Jordan-esque back. No fireworks and brass bands yet. Just back.

He is in his first season as basketball coach at St. Louis University, a program traditionally more crop than cream. In a city whose highest-profile company uses large, muscular horses to brand its product, the Billikens' basketball team is more Clydesdale than thoroughbred.

The Billikens have fielded a team since 1915 and have been in the NCAA tournament six times. The best they have done is four second-round losses. Their most recent trip was 2000, when they lost in the first round.

To Utah.

Coached by Majerus.

Yet, St. Louis is in his comfort zone, and his team looks remarkably similar to his early Utah teams as he built a program that went to 10 NCAA tournaments in his 12 full seasons there and lost in the 1998 championship game.

The Billikens are already getting better, as demonstrated Wednesday night.

They had lost to George Washington on Jan. 10, an embarrassing 49-20 setback that established a scoring low in Division I basketball since the advent of the shot clock in 1985-86.

"They didn't hold us to 20," Majerus says. "We held us to 20."

This time, the Billikens won, 63-38.

That made them 5-5 in the 14-team Atlantic 10 Conference, 14-10 overall. Actually, 11-5 and 20-10 are still possible, and anything close to that might mark Majerus' best coaching job anywhere.

Majerus was last seen officially in Los Angeles on Dec. 21, 2004, walking out a side door at USC's Heritage Hall. Six days before that, he had taken the Trojans coaching job. But he changed his mind and keynoted the farewell news conference with the memorable: "I don't want to have a Rick Majerus memorial game."

It remains a strange twist for Southern California basketball fans.

He had been an enlightened choice -- consistently leading teams to 20-win seasons and top-10 rankings at Utah. For years, he had talked about getting to California, ideally to the Pacific 10 Conference. "Recruiting kids to places like UCLA and USC," he says, "is like inviting an alcoholic to a New Year's Eve party."

USC did fine. It quickly hired Tim Floyd, opened the Galen Center and is now growing a program that was, for years, merely an afterthought to football.

So why did Majerus walk away from USC?