DawgBlog

Just got a Twitter update from Tom Weber, who said SIU center Nick Evans did not make the trip for a violation of team rules. I’ll have some more information after the game.

Evans served a one-game suspension after he was ejected from the game at Creighton. He is averaging 5.4 points and 3.1 rebounds in 21 games this season, but has seen his minutes dwindle with the emergence of Gene Teague. This probably won’t help that situation.

Northern Iowa’s men’s basketball team is nothing short of a machine right now, evidenced by its 11-1 start in the Missouri Valley Conference.

The Panthers (20-2, 11-1 MVC) have won close games (59-56 against Wichita State earlier this week) and blowouts (62-40 over Indiana State here in the McLeod Center), because they have depth, experience and confidence. Not to mention talent. UNI is not invincible, but is pretty close, especially here in Cedar Falls, where it’s 10-0 and have taken 11 straight.

Of course, every streak ends sometime, it seems, and SIU may be in a position to put an end to that streak today on ESPN2. UNI is coming off one of its biggest wins of the season over the Shockers, which gave it a three-game lead with six to play. The Salukis come into town after a pretty good performance against Missouri State, and with a little bit of a chip of their shoulder. They’re tied for eighth in the league at 13-9, 5-7, and probably think they’re a little better than that. When you examine the parts, they are, but they’ve got to play together for a couple games in a row to get out of that positioning.
That may start tonight. SIU has played some of its best basketball away from Carbondale. The Salukis need to avoid the kind of start they had against UNI in Carbondale Jan. 6, and try to win the game at the end.

Gotta say I was a little surprised at the hiring of Sioux Falls head coach Kalen DeBoer as the new offensive coordinator at SIU Friday.

You can’t argue wit DeBoer’s results, of course, but I question taking an NAIA coach who’s never played or coached at the Division I level to lead a Division I offense. NAIA is a little different environment than the Missouri Valley Football Conference, the second-best Football Championship Subdivision league in the country. However, again, you can’t argue with his results.

DeBoer was an All-American wide receiver at Sioux Falls, and set numerous school records. As a head coach, he lost as many games (three) as he won national titles, which, at any level, is stupendous. His 67-3 record is ridiculous, so, SIU should consider itself lucky to get him. He’s won back-to-back national titles, and probably wanted a bigger challenge, and now he’s got it.

“I’m excited to announce Kalen DeBoer as our offensive coordinator at Southern Illinois,” SIU head football coach Dale Lennon said in a statement Friday. “His 67-3 head coaching record speaks volumes about his coaching ability, but through the years I have become equally impressed with Kalen as a quality person. His offensive philosophy is the right fit for what we want to accomplish with the Saluki offense and his understanding of game management will be a good complement to our overall team philosophy.”

Like Lennon, DeBoer likes offensive balance, and had it at Sioux Falls last season. USF averaged 487.5 yards of total offense last season, 256.1 rushing and 231.4 passing. The Salukis would love those numbers, and will have the type of personnel this year to produce them.

Lennon had never coached at the Division I level, either, before winning two MVFC coach of the year awards, so, we’ll see.

Kentucky’s John Wall continues to lead the player of the year straw poll Michael Rothstein of AnnArbor.com runs. Wall received 106 points in the poll, which was made up of 48 media types who are voters on the annual major awards. Ohio State’s Evan Turner finished second with 82 points, and was followed by Syracuse forward Wesley Johnson (38) and Villanova guard Scottie Reynolds (17).

Here’s the link if you want to see the full straw poll results.
http://www.annarbor.com/sports/um-basketball/evan-turners-back-gains-ground-on-john-wall-in-player-of-year-voting/

As a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, I get to vote on all the major awards at the end of the season. For the straw poll, those invited to participate just give Rothstein a list of our top three. I went with Wall, Johnson and Reynolds, in that order. I will start posting the link to the poll results when they come out.

Gene Teague, the most mobile immovable object SIU’s men’s basketball team has had in a long time, led the Salukis to a 73-67 victory earlier tonight at SIU Arena.

Teague, a 6-foot-9, 290-pound freshman center from Brooklyn, made 6-of-9 from the field and 4-of-7 at the free-throw line for a career-high 16 points. He grabbed eight rebounds, blocked a shot, and even had two assists, not to mention put Kyle Weems in foul trouble. That’s what Teague does that doesn’t get a lot of publicity, is, by going right at people at the offensive end, even if he gets fouled and misses both free throws, those fouls add up.

They’re going to need to Saturday at Northern Iowa, because the Panthers (20-2, 11-1 Missouri Valley Conference) won again tonight, and will have a big advantage with Jordan Eglseder. SIU couldn’t really handle him before, and even with Teague, still have an impending problem, because at 7-1, or whatever he is, he can reach over Teague without necessarily fouling him.
He blocked about 100 shots in the two teams’ first meeting, but, if SIU can do enough to open things up for others, the Panthers may be in for a long game. SIU has undoubtedly improved at the defensive end, and, tonight, survived despite an unconscious effort from Adam Leonard. Leonard made 7-of-8 in the first half, scored more points than he had minutes, and only moderately slowed down before finishing with a career-high 29 points.

Leonard became the 13th person to break 20 against SIU this season, but Tony Freeman did an admirable job on him in the second half.

Freeman only scored six points in 34 minutes, but did his job. Justin Bocot picked up the scoring slack, putting up 13 and five in 25 minutes. Kevin Dillard hit four big free throws in the final minute and finished with 11, five rebounds and four assists in 25 minutes. Anthony Booker had 10 off the bench, and Fay hit a big 3-pointer to finish with nine.

Pretty good effort from SIU. Now we’ll see if it can step it up against the Panthers Saturday.

SIU’s men’s basketball team (12-9, 4-7 MVC) and Missouri State (15-7, 5-6 MVC) enter tonight’s game at SIU Arena looking for a lot of the same things. Things like confidence, scoring, defensive improvement. Rebounding.

Both need a win pretty badly, but, whoever loses tonight gets a chance a week from tonight in Springfield, Mo., to get it back. The two teams haven’t played at all this season, but will compete twice against each other in the span of a week.

MSU has struggled since entering league play, as the Bears won their first 10 games and were 14-1 before hitting the Valley. They’ve lost their last four games on the road, and may be a little better, offensively, then the Salukis. Both teams go about 9-10 deep. Both teams shoot 44.6 percent from the field (what are the odds of that?), but what sets the Bears apart is their ability to get to the free-throw line and rebound off the offensive glass. MSU has 151 3-pointers. SIU has 150. MSU has 342 free throws made, SIU 292. MSU has grabbed 248 of its 759 rebounds at the offensive end. SIU has 21 of its 704 boards at that end.

“For us, it’s always about defense, rebounding and playing hard,” MSU coach Cuonzo Martin said. “We’re able to score some points, but getting those extra baskets around the rim really helps out a lot.”

SIU coach Chris Lowery said his team needs the bench to come back to life, and for his squad to finish off a team when it performs, defensively.

“We’re in a different area right now for our team,” he said. “We’re playing good enough to be in every game, where it comes down to a last possession game for us. That’s good, because we’ve normally won those games. We feel we’re in a good place defensively. We’re guarding people, we’re giving up 50 points at home in two out of three games in the conference. And when we don’t win them, obviously that is very frustrating. We’re locked in and focused and we’re doing things right, we just have to finish off, and that’s the key. We have to execute down the stretch.”

SIU needs to execute Big-Time tonight if it wants to avoid another five-game skid. After tonight, the Salukis go to league leader Northern Iowa, go to Missouri State, and then return home to play Evansville. Then it’s off to Drake, another place where no one wins.

It looked like SIU was going to steal one Sunday night against Wichita State, but the Shockers’ unlikely heroes had other ideas.

Whereas the Salukis played pretty good defense on forward J.T. Durley and guards Toure’ Murry and Clevin Hannah, WSU’s top guns, they absolutely lost guard Graham Hatch. Garrett Stutz earned all of his 12 points, as he grabbed six offensive rebounds, scored off a few of those, and made 6-of-12 from the field. The thing that had to sting SIU after its 55-54 loss at SIU Arena was simply losing the 6-4 Hatch, who scored at least three times off a curl around a screen and nobody picking him up in the lane.

Pretty easy to make layups, especially at this level. When you give them away, it’s tough to win, and SIU’s defense took a little bit of a confidence hit Sunday against the Shockers. WSU shot 42.1 percent from the floor (24-of-57). Not bad. Not great. Not awful. Not that bad of a defensive effort. But when you consider Durley, Murry and Hannah combined for 18 points, when they averaged more than 35, now you think about the game as one you had to win.

The luster is gone from SIU Arena now. Sure, you may see me mention the Salukis’ big record here over the last eight years (it’s 68-11 now, by the way), but when you consider since the start the 2008-09 season, my first full season as the Salukis’ beat writer, SIU is 6-9 at home against the Missouri Valley Conference. The luster is gone, which is why Missouri State is going to come in here tonight and put up a fight. The intimidation factor is gone, and SIU has to earn it back.

Graham Hatch wasn’t much of a factor in last season’s Wichita State season. Tonight, he has nine points at the break and has made all three of his field-goal attempts, one of ‘em a 3-pointer that hiked the Shockers’ lead to four.
SIU (12-8, 4-6 Missouri Valley Conference) trailed by 10 but cut the lead to one with a great bank shot by Kevin Dillard before the buzzer. Dillard had eight to lead SIU, which has taken 11 straight against WSU here at SIU Arena.
J.T. Durley, WSU’s big forward, had four points and two rebounds. SIU center Gene Teague had a vicious one-handed dunk and finished the first half with four points and two boards. Anthony Booker and John Freeman also had two boards for the Salukis, which were out-boarded by two, 15-13.
We’ll see if SIU can keep frustrating WSU (18-4, 7-3 MVC) in the second half.

Sorry about the tardiness of tonight’s preview… had some computer problems.
SIU and Wichita State are very similar. Both have some great guards that can shoot and drive, and one big presence in the middle. The Salukis, however, have more than one horse inside, and they’ll need both Gene Teague and Anthony Booker to be big tonight. Teague has shown some great ability, has great hands, and makes SIU’s offense look better when it goes inside-out.

Maybe tonight is the night Nick Evans comes back to life, because once you get past J.T. Durley, WSU’s post subs don’t have near the size and strength.

The Shockers have some terrific scorers at the guard spot, though, so it will be big for SIU to guard without fouling tonight. WSU shoots almost 76 percent as a team at the line. Toure’ Murry is in range when he crosses half court, and Clevin Hannah was the Missouri Valley Conference’s player of the week in late December.

SIU (12-8, 4-6 MVC) and WSU (18-4, 7-3 MVC) both need this one tonight. The Salukis, simply because they’re questioning themselves a bit and have the toughest second half schedule of any team in the league. The Shockers need it simply to stay up with Northern Iowa, which won again last night.

Indiana State guard Dwayne Lathan is suited up and going to try to give it a go tonight. We’ll see how much he plays. Lathan has missed the last five games with a lower leg injury.

SIU’s guards had trouble, at times, staying with Lathan and Harry Marshall in its 70-52 win earlier this season. The Salukis could have a big advantage in the middle tonight with Gene Teague, Anthony Booker and Nick Evans. Evans, especially, needs to step it up tonight and get back to doing the things that made him successful in the early going. Tonight’s game will probably hinge on SIU’s perimeter defense, however, which has been improving steadily. The Salukis are becoming harder to screen at the top of the key, and have had good ball pressure on the perimeter.

Western Kentucky had 15 turnovers and 14 assists in SIU’s 68-63 win Monday night. Both teams shot more than 40 percent from the field, but SIU hit two more 3-pointers and were just very careful with the basketball. INS has some nice size, but not a lot of quickness inside, aside from Isiah Martin, the Sycamores’ big shot blocker. Look for SIU to go inside-out, which it does best, and score a big road victory tonight.