Saluki Men’s Basketball holds off Missouri State, 67-63, in MVC Quarterfinals

Madison Case, SIU Salukis photo

By Tom Weber – siusalukis.com

ST LOUIS, Mo. — Southern Illinois held off a furious late-game rally by Missouri State to win, 67-63, in the quarterfinal round of the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament at Scottrade Center on Friday night.

The Salukis (20-12) appeared comfortably ahead, 63-49, after Sean Lloyd made a 3-pointer with 6:18 remaining in the game, before the Bears (18-15) reeled off 12 unanswered points to make it 63-61 with 1:30 to go.

“We were up 14, and somebody said, well, what happened?” said SIU head coach Barry Hinson. “What happened is they’re a good basketball team. Forrest Gump, stuff happens.”

Southern stopped the bleeding and ended a five-minute dry spell when Aaron Cook drove the lane and finished with his left hand to make it 65-61 with under a minute to play.

“I said, ‘I’m going to put you back in, and I’m going to put the ball in your hands,'” Hinson said of his sophomore point guard. “And I just said, ‘I just want you to make good decisions. That’s it. Do what you’ve done all year long.'”

The Bears countered with two free throws by Jarred Dixon to trim the deficit to 65-63 with 47 seconds. After Cook missed a jumper with 19 seconds remaining, Missouri State had a chance to tie or take the lead, but Ryan Kreklow was stripped of the ball in the left corner, which led to a breakaway layup for Lloyd to seal the victory.

“At the end you’ve got to get the ball to the rim and you’ve got a chance,” said Missouri State head coach Paul Lusk, whose team was out of timeouts and was unable to get the ball to one of its top scorers on the final possession. “Obviously, we coughed it up. That’s the way it goes, but give Southern a lot of credit.”

Both teams got off to slow starts offensively. With six minutes to go in the first half, the score was deadlocked at just 14-14. Southern got a huge lift off the bench from center Rudy Stradnieks, however. He scored all seven of his points in the final four minutes of the first half to give SIU a 29-28 halftime advantage. His final bucket was a 3-pointer from the top of the key, just his third trey of the season.

“We called the play for Rudy,” Hinson explained. “That’s why the bench was so excited because we asked Rudy — I said, ‘Rudy, we’re going to run this play for you.’ Rudy has not shot a three or made a three in the second half of the year, and he’s a good three-point shooter.”

SIU’s offense finally hit its stride midway through the second half. Leading, 48-47, the Salukis used a 15-2 run that featured a pair of post-up buckets by Kavion Pippen, back-to-back 3-pointers by Tyler Smithpetersand Cook, before Lloyd put the exclamation point on the burst with his second trey of the game.

Southern had a balanced attack with five players in double figures — Lloyd (13), Pippen (11) and Cook, Smithpeters and Armon Fletcher with 10 apiece.

The Salukis also held Missouri State’s best player — Alize Johnson — to just six points on 3-of-6 shooting.

“At halftime, we challenged Sean defensively because we switched, we put Armon on (Jarrid) Rhodes for his length, and we put Sean Lloyd on Alize,” Hinson said. “And then we challenged Kavion to go score, that we were going to get him the basketball. And we did. And he produced.”

The Salukis beat MSU for the eighth-straight time. They have won 20 games for the second time in the last three seasons and advanced to the semis for the third time in the last five years.

Box Score

Missouri State 63

Southern Illinois 67