CARBONDALE, IL. — In an unexpected nail-biter, Southern Illinois rallied to beat Illinois-Springfield, 69-64, on Saturday night and improved to 49-5 all-time in home openers at SIU Arena.
Aaron Cook – siusalukis.com
Aaron Cook had a career-high 20 points to lead the Salukis (2-0), but it was teammate Eric McGill who hit the game’s biggest shot — a 3-pointer with 2:43 remaining that helped SIU regain the lead.
The contest was classified as an exhibition for the Division II Prairie Stars, but after falling behind, 7-0, they stood toe-to-toe with Southern the rest of the way. A 3-pointer by Eddie Longemeyer with 3:15 remaining gave them their first lead, 58-57, and sent a chill through the crowd of 4,166.
On SIU’s next possession, Cook found McGill wide open in the left corner, and the junior college transfer — making his home debut — found the bottom of the net. McGill came off the bench to scored 13 points. The bucket started a 7-0 run that gave the Salukis some breathing room, although UIS came as close as three points on a layup by Longemeyer with 21 seconds remaining. Cook then iced the win at the free throw line with a pair of makes.
“If we’d have won tonight by 20 or 30, it wouldn’t have helped us at all,” said Salukis head coach Barry Hinson, who improved to 13-0 all-time against non-Division I opponents. “The scenarios that came up tonight where we had to come from behind, and we had to win the ballgame and the pressure. Do you know how much pressure there was not to lose this game?”
The stat lines for the teams were remarkably similar. Both clubs made 23 field goals and both shot 33 percent from 3-point range, but SIU had a 16-10 advantage at the charity stripe. Southern had a size advantage over UIS, but had difficulty exploiting it, as the UIS defense sagged in on 6-foot-10 center Kavion Pippen, who finished with 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting.
“We couldn’t throw the ball inside, because they just said beat us from the perimeter,” Hinson explained. “I would have told you going into the game that if anyone would have done that to us, I’d have told you that will never happen. I was a little surprised at that.”
Hinson said he saw flashes of FloorburnU during the game, as the defense held UIS to 39 percent from the field, and multiple players dove on the floor for loose balls. During one sequence in the first half, both Tyler Smithpeters and Sean Lloyd ended up on the hardwood in a mad-scramble for possession. Lloyd slid across midcourt to retrieve the ball, fired it back to Smithpeters, who drilled his 100th-career 3-pointer.
“We guarded tonight,” Hinson said. “Tonight’s lesson to our team was, never be upset with getting a win, and there’s going to be a lot of nights where you don’t play well offensively, and it’s proven you can win it on the defensive end of the floor.”
Starting guard Armon Fletcher, who is nursing a knee injury, did not play in the game, but dressed and stayed loose by riding a stationary bike, in case he was needed. Hinson said Fletcher will play Tuesday at Louisville.
Box score link
http://siusalukis.com/boxscore.aspx?id=7931&path=mbball
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