CHICAGO, Ill. – Desmar Jackson dominated on both ends of the court on Wednesday night, scoring a career-high 31 points, while adding six assists and four steals to lift Southern Illinois past Loyola-Chicago, 71-67, as SIU won its first road game in six tries this season.

The Salukis (5-11, 1-2) trailed 67-65 with a minute remaining, but twice the Loyola defense converged to stop Jackson, and twice he found Jalen Pendleton slipping to the basket for easy layups. The game-winner came with 5.8 seconds remaining.

“He had a big-time, All-League performance,” said Loyola head coach Porter Moser. “He made the big shot and he made the big pass — just a tremendous performance by Desmar Jackson.”

The Ramblers (6-9, 1-2) shot 55 percent from the field but turned the ball over 17 times against SIU’s zone defense. Operating from the top of the 2-3 zone, the 6-foot-5 Jackson constantly harassed Loyola’s guards. The starting combo of Jeff White and Doyle combined to commit 12 turnovers.

“I thought he single-handedly disrupted so much on the zone tonight,” said SIU head coach Barry Hinson.

“The problem with those turnovers was they turned into dunks,” Moser agreed.

Southern led by one at halftime, but the game was a see-saw affair throughout with 12 ties and 14 lead changes. Jackson had 18 second-half points and seemed to deliver a critical bucket every time his team needed one.

“I’m literally, completely overjoyed for our players,” said Hinson, whose team snapped a three-game slide. “We’ve had a gamut of emotions here over the last few days.”

The Salukis spent 22 hours on the road on Sunday and Monday traveling through a snowstorm, and then made a nine-hour bus ride to Chicago on Tuesday. They showed no ill effects or road weariness, however.

“When’s the last time you guys slept on a bus or in a church on a pew? I slept in a car at Huck’s,” Hinson said. “I thought tonight we got a glimpse of what we possibly could be. We really played together tonight and unselfishly.”

Loyola forward Christian Thomas was a force inside with 21 points and 12 rebounds, and Doyle added 17 points, though he committed eight turnovers. Anthony Beane broke out of a recent slump with a 15-point outing for Southern, and Pendleton added 14.

The story of the night, though, was Jackson.

“Desmar and I had a heart-to-heart meeting two days ago, and I challenged him, and he responded extremely well,” Hinson said.

CARBONDALE, Ill. – Desmar Jackson and Anthony Beane combined to score 50 points for Southern Illinois, which held on to beat Missouri-St. Louis, 71-66, in an exhibition game at SIU Arena on Saturday night.

Anthony Beane scored 21 points for SIU.

Jackson, a preseason All-Conference pick, finished with 29 points and did not leave the floor in the second half, as the visiting Tritons gave Southern all it could handle. In fact, UMSL had a chance to tie the game with two seconds left, but Femi John tossed up an air ball on a 3-point attempt.

The Salukis then sealed the victory at the free throw line as Jackson made both shots with 0.6 to go. He was 13-of-16 from the charity stripe on the night, while Beane, who scored 21 points, was 11-of-12 from the line.

“Not one thing tonight surprised me,” said SIU head coach Barry Hinson. “If you could have had a one-point win and had to play your tail off, that’s far better than a 20-point blowout.”

Coming into the game, Southern knew what to expect from the highly touted tandem of Jackson and Beane. The big question that remains to be answered is which players will step forward in supporting roles. Eight newcomers received minutes for SIU and they combined to score 13 points.

“Every one of them were one shade off albino — they were scared to death,” Hinson said. “Sean O’Brien was so scared, Bronson Verhines won a national championship and he was scared, and Bola (Olaniyan) bless his heart, he wasn’t even here — he was still in Nigeria.”

Much has been made of the new manner of officiating that is designed to allow the offense more freedom. Fifty fouls were called in the game, including 30 against UMSL, somewhat restricting the flow of the game.

Hinson was disappointed in the play of his front court, which was unable to take advantage of an UMSL lineup that played most of the game without a player on the floor taller than 6-foot-4. Starting forwards Davante Drinkard and Verhines each six points for the Salukis. SIU’s big men also had trouble containing their smaller counterparts on defense.

“I’m disappointed in our defense,” Hinson said. “Our on-the-ball defense was pretty good, obviously, because we just let them go anywhere they wanted to go.”

One of the keys to this season for Southern will be finding a replacement at the hybrid forward position that was manned so effectively last year by Jeff Early. In addition to his six points, Verhines had a team-high eight rebounds. He split time with freshman Sean O’Brien, who scored two points.

“Bronson and Sean didn’t play as well as I thought they’d play,” Hinson said. “I expected them to play better offensively, and defensively I expected them to struggle a little bit. I have two good hybrids, though. I like them.”

At media day earlier this month, Hinson predicted his team would improve upon its 32 percent shooting from 3-point range last year. That didn’t happen tonight, as the Salukis were 0-for-11.

“It better be a blip,” he said. “It’s a blip, I promise you. All of our shooting percentages in practices have gone up.”

UMSL was a last-minute replacement for Harris-Stowe, which was the originally scheduled opponent for tonight’s game.

“We owe a huge thanks to UMSL and (head coach) Bob Sunvoldt,” Hinson said. “They absolutely rescued us in a dire situation.”

Coach Cindy Stein’s opening remarks

We are so excited about the upcoming season. It seems like it has come so fast. It feel like I was just being hired and we were trying to get kicking. Things are off to a great start. The focus has been keeping it simple. We’ve got a young team, so we’ve got to keep it simple in many ways.

We are concentrated on our defense right now probably a little more than our offense. Hopefully we’ll have a few plays in before our exhibition on the 25th. But we are really concentrating on our defense, and keeping it simple — one play at time. Catching the ball with two hands. Taking care of the ball.

Cindy Stein

We do want to push the ball up the floor, but we want to do that under control. We want to be all over people defensively, but of course we want to do that without fouling. We want to keep people off the free throw line. From an offensive end, we are attacking. We want to get to the free throw line a lot. Defensively, we are attacking, but we want to keep people off the free throw line, and we’re getting the kids to understand what that takes.

We are going to start with probably seven kids. I think seven kids right now would be our rotation if we were to start right now. I think Rishonda Napier would probably start at point guard for us. She’s looking very good there and taking care of the ball. She’s a very good leader. We’re moving Cartaesha Macklin to the off guard, which is I think more of her natural position. I think Jordyn Courier is playing extremely well, and she is someone that we will look to play on the wing and inside for us. Inside, I think we’ve got some opportunities. Azia Washington is looking very good. Dyana Pierre is looking good. Alexus Patterson is looking good. We’ve got some room there.

The biggest surprise has been Mercedes Griffin, who I think could be an impact player because she can make so much happen defensively. She’s a very explosive athlete. She is an elite-level athlete, and our goal is to make her an elite-level basketball player.

Those seven really have started to embrace what we want to do. They are doing extremely well, and we are just trying to get the rest of them the confidence they need to do all the little things right. That has really been our focus.

Everyone wants to know where I would predict our team. I have no idea. I’d like to say that we are going to be at the top. That’s always what you want. That’s going to be our goal. We are going after everybody.

We open up these exhibitions, I’ve said this before, but I don’t care about the score in these exhibitions. Do I want to win? Absolutely. We’re competitors, we want to win. But I do want to work with different groups. I want to get different rotations in. I want to get different people at the point guard spot so that we have some consistency there. That is probably our most inconsistent area. Then we worry about Wright State, our first game. Then it is all out for that game. But our exhibitions will be more about what we need to do and focusing on us rather than what the other team does.

We may play around, and we are going to try to play everybody. But that’s not going to happen every game. You want to do it early and see what people have, then you go into that November 8 game against Wright State, and get a solid core that we can get a good rotation with and go after people. That’s our plan.

I’ve got a great staff. They are great teachers, and really that is all we’ve concentrated on. We have been doing a lot of teaching every day in practice and getting our system down. We are not as far along as we would’ve liked. We are probably not as far along as some teams in the conference that have returning staffs, but that’s OK. We’ll get them there.

Q: You say right now you are not putting in a lot of plays. When you get things together, will you run a lot of set plays, or motion or what?

We do run a motion offense, but we will run quite a few sets. We like to come down and go right into a secondary break into a motion offense where we can just get things rolling. If someone stops us from doing that, we will run a couple of quick hitters that always go into our motion.

Q: You said you have those seven players right now. Is there anyone else that you brought in or anyone else that is starting to make that progress?

I think that everybody at different times throughout our practice has good moments. Our freshmen are a little bit behind right now from where I want them to be. We’ve got a freshman post player, Kim Nebo, that is really explosive off the floor. I can’t get her to run a play right, but she can rebound like the Dickens and she can catch the ball and score. Now we’ve just got to get her to know where she is supposed to be. She can make a lot of things happen. The rest of them are kind of in that learning stage as well. I think we’ll be there. From the veterans’ standpoint, I think it is some kids that don’t play with a lot of confidence. That’s something we’ve got to continue to build. Taking over a team that has only won a few games throughout the year, the biggest thing is working on their confidence and getting them to understand the work ethic that will get you to that level where you are feeling confident in what you do.

Q: Until you get to games, how are you measuring progress right now?

We take stats every practice and try to monitor that. We give our Super Dawg shirts so everything is a competition. We are monitoring their work ethic. We monitor their toughness — diving for loose balls, taking charges. Everything that we are doing in practice every single day, every statistic is given to them so they know where they stand. With the Super Dawg shirts, we’ve got an overall leader and we have a daily one. They like to wear those shirts. Just little things like that provide us some kind of competition. It’s just monitoring from that standpoint and seeing how much better they are getting.

Q: What do you like about your schedule this year?

I don’t like anything about our schedule. We’ll play it. We want to win all of our games. We are just trying to get ready for Wright State. Is there anybody we look forward to? We always look forward to the Valley. I’m not sure how much we are going to get tested because we are so concentrated on our own team. There is nobody that stands out that we want any more than anybody else right now. The main thing is not to beat ourselves.

Q: Can you talk about the overall athleticism of the group?

I think we’ve got some great athletes. We’ve got kids that kids that can run hard, run fast and jump high. Now we’ve got to make them basketball players. That is the key — taking care of the ball, making two-handed passes, making two-handed catches, making layups and being consistent at that. That’s kind of what we are getting to. You can only go as fast as you can if you are under control. That’s what we emphasize, and I think you’ll see that.

By DeMario Phipps-Smith
SIUSalukis.com

CARBONDALE, Ill. – The Southern Illinois men’s basketball team held its annual Media Day in the Cook Club at SIU Arena on Tuesday. Head coach Barry Hinson fielded questions from the media, and all 15 players had one-on-one interviews with members of the local press. Afterward, the team held an open practice.

Coach Hinson Opening Statement

“If I were to tell you that Louisville, Kansas or Kentucky were coming to SIU Arena, do you think we would sell out the arena? I think everyone would say, yes. I say that because we have the No. 1 football team coming into our stadium on Saturday. It would blow my mind if you come into the stadium and can’t find a place to sit. I can’t tell you how excited I am about our football team right now. That place should be packed and sold out. People should come up to the ticket gates and be told that the only seats left are on the berm. I hope that’s what we are able to do.”

“The one thing that’s changed for the men is that we decided to practice like the women have been doing for the past few years. I think it has helped us a tremendous amount. Normally, today would be our first practice but we are heading into our 12th practice. We don’t have anyone injured; we don’t have fatigue, we don’t have sickness, because we were idiots when it came to practicing. We never took time off and we had everyone getting fatigued and sick. We weren’t smart enough to figure out how to avoid jamming everything into two weeks. I’m excited about this and I like it. We have a lot of coaches who don’t like it, which is unbelievable in my mind, but they can keep doing what they’ve been doing.”

Tyler Smithpeters answers questions at media day.

Q: Are you close to where you want to be as a team?

“You want to coach to perfection, and we are nowhere close to where we want to be. At the same time, I like that there are a few things we can introduce here. I think the transition for a lot of the players has been easier and smoother this year. I think the biggest thing that has changed this year is that I’m not dealing with the police, lawyers and academics. I actually get to coach basketball. Last year, we didn’t get to do that. We had a saying in our office, similar to construction site’s saying of ’25 days without an accident, 25 days without an incident.’ In our office, we just wanted to go two days without an accident. That didn’t happen until February when we went three solid days. This year we haven’t had many incidents or anything that could derail our program.”

Q: What do you expect from Desmar Jackson this season?

“I expect everything from our best player — and that’s what everyone is calling him on paper — our best player. Your best player always has to be your hardest worker and has to set an example on and off the floor. Desmar struggled with every one of those things last year. I think he has improved in all of these areas and has done everything that is expected of him. He still has major challenges that lay ahead of him. I expect him to handle those things in a mature manner and we coach him like we do any other player. I expect great things from him. When it becomes more important to me than it is to you, then it is time to move on. We got to that point last year after the Wichita State game. I think he understood that I got to that point with him and we have had a much better relationship since the summer.”

Q: What is the thing that has surprised you about this team?

“I think the biggest thing for us is that we are getting along. I think we have so many new guys that our biggest two challenges are the schedule and the new bodies. It’s a blender right now. I ought to representing Ninja Blenders because we are just throwing them in there, literally, and seeing what happens. For the most part, I’m kind of excited about it.”

Q: Do you feel that you will be a better perimeter shooting team this year?

“We better be. It can’t get worse, it’s impossible. It absolutely cannot get worse. My wife could shoot better from the 3-point line than we did last year and she is a horrible athlete.”

Q: Have you decided on a rotation?

“I have no idea. We play nine guys, every once in a while we’ll play 10. We are looking for those guys right now. We’ll settle in with about seven guys. There is a little competition for the eight, nine and 10 spots. I think we are pretty solid with seven. I think you guys have heard about this, but the rules have changed. In the first month of college basketball, officials have predicted 60-75 fouls per game. Games are going to be extended 15-30 minutes longer, 99 percent of charges will be called as fouls. The NCAA has seen the lowest scoring output in 30 years. They have sent out a mandate to all the officials that if you put your hands on a guy it’s an automatic foul. We are now doing the NBA continuation rule where if you hit a player who is going in an upward motion, it’s an automatic foul. The game for the fans is getting ready to change in a dramatic way. I talked to Jay Bilas about this last week. I think we need more offense and entertainment but I think when you take out the charge — where we can neutralize superior athletes by being a little more intelligent — I think that takes away from what this conference has always been about. I think this will be a big challenge for us and mid majors. We had a meeting with some officials and they said not to be shocked if your point guard fouls out in the first half. I think we’re getting ready to see much more points being scored — ironically, it’ll come from the free-throw line and not the game. I think you’ll see the scores go up dramatically.”

Q: You have a lot more regional teams on your schedule. Was that the plan?

“Yeah, it really was. We felt like our fans, when I first got here, we didn’t play regional games. We’ve always play Saint Louis, and of course, we’d love to keep that series going. We’ve got Western Kentucky, we started a new series with Austin Peay, and I don’t have a clue who started the series with Murray State. Whoever the head coach was who signed that deal is an absolute idiot. You’re talking about one of the top winning programs over the last 20 years. If you look at our schedule, we’re not jumping into the wading pool, we’re not jumping into a swimming pool, we’re not jumping into a pond, we’re just jumping into the ocean. It’s a little bold for me to do this, but I felt we needed to find out where we are and where we need to be.”

Q: How do you feel the style of play will change with the newcomers?

“One of the things you do when you take over a program, the guys that you recruit in better fit what you do. No one can point their finger at anybody but me. All the new guys are the guys we felt fit our style of play and what we want to do, specifically our hybrid spot and how we want our point guard to play, the ability to shoot from the perimeter, a little bit of size and athleticism. If you look at what we’ve done with our squad, you’ll be able to figure out it’s similar to what we did at Missouri State and what we did at Kansas when we started recruiting to a system.”