Southern Illinois University
Bradley
Men's Basketball Winning Streak Ends at Bradley in OT
02/15/2003 | 12:00:00 | Men's Basketball
Feb 15, 2003
PEORIA, Ill. - Southern Illinois let a 13-point lead slip away in the second half as the team's leading scorer, Kent Williams, watched helplessly from the bench in the Salukis' 77-73 overtime loss at Bradley Saturday.
Williams played just 19 minutes in the game due to foul trouble, and fouled out with a 1:03 remaining in regulation and the Salukis leading 61-59.
Bradley (10-14, 6-7) tied the game, 61-61, on a pair of free throws by Marcello Robinson, and then tookt the lead, 63-61, with 27 seconds left on a pair of free throws by Jason Faulknor.
Southern tied the game and sent it to overtime on two free throws by Jermaine Dearman with 13 seconds remaining.
In overtime, the Braves went on an 11-2 run to take a 74-65 lead with 2:14 left. SIU pulled to within three, 76-73, on a 3-pointer by Stetson Hairston with 22 seconds left, but Mike Suggs sealed the victory for Bradley by hitting one of two free throws with nine seconds left.
Bradley held a huge advantage at the free throw line, converting 29-of-33 attempts, while Southern made just 10-of-19 free throws.
Stetson Hairston led SIU with 18 points and had a career-high six 3-pointers.
The loss snapped a seven-game winning streak for Southern Illiniois (17-5, 12-2), however, the Salukis remained in a tie for first place in the Missouri Valley Conference because #12 Creighton lost at Wichita State.
Postgame Quotes
Bruce Weber
"We've done this all year. We don't know how to put away a team. I thought Bradley came out with no energy to start the second half. I kept pleading with our guys, you've got to put them away, you've got to get them down."
"It was life without Kent Williams at the end. We have somebody that knows how to make plays when it counts, and we didn't have him there, and I guess I didn't have the guys prepared to play without Kent."
"It's even more disheartening when you hear that Creighton lost. We could have really taken control of the league, but now it's still in our hands."
"We've had a tough stretch. Four out of five on the road, no one else has that in the league. We played Thursday night and had to come up here and play Saturday afternoon. We survived it all, but I guess our luck ran out here today."
"We tried to get Jermaine the ball. He had 13 free throws. They were very physical. We turned it over a couple of times trying to throw it to him. He turned it over, too. When Kent went out, that's what we talked about, getting it to Dearman. It became very physical in the second half, they trapped him, double-teamed him, bumped him."
"(Bradley) played zone quite a bit in the first half, and that's where we got those open threes. We call them horse shots. We swung the ball, got it inside-outside. In the second half, they played aggressive man-to-man defense, old-time Bradley basketball the way I've known them to play. They used the crowd to intimidate you, they picked it up in the second half, no doubt about that."
"When (the players) heard that Creighton lost, it really hit them in the stomach. It's been a long stretch, it's hard. I told them yesterday in practice, don't get bored with winning, because I could just see the emotion wasn't there in practice. Man, this is the title, the Valley championship, it's sitting there for you."
Kent Williams
"Some of the plays that we run are basically designed for me or designed for me in them as a decoy. That kind of changed things. We just didn't make the plays when we needed to, and they had some big shots that fell for them. We had them down and a chance to take advantage of it, but we didn't do it."
"We're looking at the big picture as well, trying to make the NCAA Tournament. Nobody's going to help us out. It's a big homestand we have coming up."
