When his team needed a basket, thousands of miles away in Turkey, Southern Illinois University guard Tony Freeman knew what to do.

Freeman, an Iowa transfer who sat out last season because of NCAA regulations, put the ball on the floor and dared the defense to stop him. More often than not it couldn't, and Freeman took home Most Valuable Player honors from a 7-0 trip in May with Sports Reach.

"I just made plays," said Freeman, a 6-foot-1, 195-pound guard who will be the only senior on the Saluki men's basketball team this winter. "If I had a shot, I took it. It was hard to shoot, because a lot of the games were outside."

Freeman averaged 20 points and eight assists with the team, which combines basketball and ministry overseas. SIU sophomore center Nick Evans played on a Sports Reach squad in China last year. Evans and Freeman were the only two Division I players on this year's squad.

Evans averaged about 14 points and 10 boards, he said. The 6-11, 240-pounder played in 28 games last season for SIU, averaging 12.6 minutes. Home-schooled before his junior year of high school, Evans averaged 2.6 points and 2.2 rebounds in his first collegiate season.

"My freshman year and coming into this year, I really didn't know who I was as a player, so I started to figure that out a little bit more," Evans said. "Playing with Free was a great chance. The first couple games, he was really looking to create, and did a good job of finding the shooters and finding me for a dunk on the first play of one game. In the other games, when we needed somebody to step up, and it was a little bit closer, he had no problem with the ball being in his hands."

Carlton Fay also got some early minutes this summer, making a 12-day trip to China.

"I just went over there to play basketball. I felt comfortable over there," Fay said.

Fay's team, which also had Northern Iowa guards Ali Farokmanesh and Kwadzo Ahelegbe, finished 4-3-1. Fay had 13 points and eight rebounds in one game and 14 points and nine boards in another.

Salukis to play at SEMO Dec. 9: SIU will play at Southeast Missouri State on Dec. 9, SEMO sports information director Ron Hines said.

SIU coach Chris Lowery said the Salukis were still looking for two more games to fill the nonconference schedule this season, with at least one a home game. SIU will play at Saint Louis, at UNLV, at SEMO and in an exempt tournament in Las Vegas. The Salukis will host Division II Indianapolis, Western Kentucky, Illinois-Chicago, Tennessee-Martin and an ESPNU BracketBuster game.

todd.hefferman@thesouthern.com / 618-351-5087