CARBONDALE, IL – Marcus Domask did all he needed to and more to help the Southern Illinois men’s basketball team protect its homecourt with a 78-70 victory over Evansville Tuesday night at Banterra Center. The senior tied a career-high finishing with 32 points, five rebounds, and four assists as Southern improved to 15-5 on the season and 7-2 in the Missouri Valley Conference.
“I’m obviously happy to get the win,” head coach Bryan Mullins said after the game. “We didn’t play our best tonight – give a ton of credit to Evansville. I thought they played extremely hard and played really good basketball.”
The Salukis were dominant over the first 15 minutes of the game, leading by 20 points with 5:44 left in the first half. Evansville did not give in though as the Aces were able to close out the first half with a 13-5 run to cut the SIU lead to 12 points heading into the locker room.
“For us, I thought our offense dictated our defense a little bit for maybe one of the first times this year,” Mullins added. “In the second half, we just didn’t play well enough on either side of the ball with too many turnovers offensively, then defensively too many uncontested shots.”
The Purple Aces would continue to keep things interesting in the second half forcing SIU into 13 turnovers over the final 20 minutes – with Southern finishing the game with 18 total. The Aces would turn those Saluki miscues into 19 points over the course of the game.
Evansville (4-16, 0-9 MVC) ran with a smaller lineup in the second half, forcing Southern’s big men to guard the perimeter which in turn allowed UE to knock down six triples in the second half to stay within striking distance.
It was Domask who would power SIU to the win, scoring 20 of his 32 points in the second half. The Waupun, Wisconsin native went 8-for-10 from the field and a perfect 3-for-3 from behind the arc in the second half of play.
Facing his old team, Jawuan Newton put in 11 points and grabbed five rebounds while Troy D’Amico joined Domask and Newton in double figures with a 4-for-4 performance from the field for 10 points to go with three rebounds.
The Salukis won the battle in the paint 44-26 and assisted on 17 of their 30 field goals.
Marvin Coleman led the Purple Aces with 25 points on 9-for-13 shooting to go with a team-high nine rebounds. Kenny Strawbridge added 12 points for UE.
UP NEXT
The Salukis hit the road this weekend with a trip to Springfield to take on Missouri State Saturday. Tip is set for 1 p.m. with the game airing on ESPN3.
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