In hindsight, there were signs that pointed toward the end. Majerus took the team to dinner before the Memphis game (Italian, naturally) and became nostalgic. He pulled his staff into an empty room and spoke of the “privilege” and “honor” it had been to work with them.

“You kept waiting for, ‘I’m done,’ ” Crews said. “But he never said that. I’m no Dr. Phil, but it seemed like he knew he was in serious trouble. We’d eat four nights a week. He never talked about basketball. That would have put such a strain on him.”

In his final meeting with the team, Majerus told the Billikens that, if all went right, they could win the conference championship this season.

The die-hards agreed with that assessment. That included Dr. Richard Chaifetz, founder of a company that is among the world’s largest employee assistance program providers, whose $12 million gift landed his name on the new arena. Chaifetz dined with Majerus after most games last season — first stop, Italian; second, dessert — and they talked not about Majerus’s documented history of heart problems, but about how good his team could be for Majerus’s last stand.

When Majerus announced he would not coach this season, St. Louis named Crews his interim replacement in August. Crews kept intact the Majerus system, and while the Billikens started 3-3, they played Kansas close and dominated Texas A&M, while Mitchell, the point guard, recovered from a broken foot.

Majerus’s health, never great in recent years, took a drastic turn in late November. Rachel Bechert, the basketball coordinator whom Majerus often called the daughter he never had, visited Majerus in a hospital in California. She remembered how he brought the staff lunch each day, how he said he would buy her a car if St. Louis made the regional semifinals, how he loved late-night talk shows and his morning swims. There he was, all hooked up to machines.

He died Dec. 1 of heart failure. He was 64.

Crews told his staff and players the news after practice, their game against Valparaiso scheduled for the next day. He told them to pray for Majerus and his family, to remember what Majerus taught them, to live the way Majerus lived, so full of zest.