Saint Louis basketball coach Rick Majerus has, on numerous occasions, been an outspoken critic of his school's Atlantic 10 Conference affiliation.

He has lashed out about the difficulty the Billikens face traveling across several states to all their away games.

He has said how that travel restricts his team's capacity to buckle down in the classroom.

Majerus also has openly politicked for a move to the Missouri Valley Conference, doing so in a postgame news conference after beating Fordham in New York last month.

He has even gone so far as to take a swipe at the airports in this part of the country, calling them, "the worst in America."

For all that, for all the real or perceived negatives associated with his Billikens playing in the Atlantic 10, his views of the players, coaches and programs in the conference are in stark contrast.

He has publicly lauded, many times, the coaches who guide Atlantic 10 teams.

He has been tremendously complimentary of several of the league's players, once going on about the talents of Duquesne's Damian Saunders in a postgame news conference at the Palumbo Center earlier this season.

And Majerus has, on various occasions, spoken of his respect for the programs in the league, and the competitiveness -- from top to bottom.

Perhaps there is no better gauge for such a competitive balance in the Atlantic 10 than the Duquesne team Majerus and his Billikens (18-9, 9-4) will play host to at 8 p.m. today at Chaifetz Arena.

The Dukes (15-12, 6-7) are eighth in the 14-team league; the Billikens are tied for fourth.

It is a far cry for Duquesne from three weeks ago, when the Dukes were 2-6 in the conference and seemed on the cusp of a tailspin after being thoroughly outplayed at Temple.

Since then, the Dukes have won four of five and three in a row to climb back into the mix -- and give credence to the claims by Majerus and others about the balance of the league.

It also has helped that junior swingman Bill Clark, mired in a slump through the heart of the season, has played masterfully lately, scoring 78 points in the past four games, after scoring a total of 23 in the four games prior.

"It is a huge confidence-builder to win three in a row, especially when you beat Charlotte on the road and a team like Dayton at home; that's a big deal in this league," Duquesne coach Ron Everhart said. "From my perspective, after the UMass game [a loss Feb. 11], we decided to go in a little bit different direction."

Oh yeah? How so?

"In terms of how hard we wanted to play every day," Everhart said of a new-look Duquesne team that now applies more pressure on defense.

"We wanted to start trapping a little more, taking some more chances, and against good teams, you roll the dice a little bit. You take a few chances, and they burn you a couple times and you either have to get out of it or stay in it. ... From my standpoint, our kids have been competing, and I like the way we have been playing, a little faster and taking a few more chances."

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