Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Southern Illinois University
9-7, 3-2
Illinois St.
8-8, 0-5
| Team | 1 | 2 | F |
|---|---|---|---|
| Illinois State | 32 | 27 | 59 |
| Southern Illinois | 32 | 31 | 63 |
Carlton Fay strokes game-winner to lift Men's Basketball past Illinois State
01/09/2011 | 12:00:00 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 9, 2011
By Tom Weber
SIUSalukis.com
CARBONDALE, Ill. - Carlton Fay scored a season-high 33 points and stroked the game-winning 3-pointer with 12 seconds remaining, lifting Southern Illinois to a 63-59 win over Illinois State on Sunday.
The clutch basket bailed out the Salukis (9-7, 3-2), who had gone more than five minutes without scoring prior to Fay's high-arching jumper from the left corner.
Fay hit the shot with defender Jon Ekey's hand just inches from his face. Illinois State head coach Tim Jankovich said his team couldn't have defended the play any better.
"We were 100 percent certain they are going to go to Fay in the corner," said Jankovich. "You can't just run out there ahead of time. Someone else is going to be wide open, so you still have to play your defense."
For a brief moment, it looked like the Redbirds (8-8, 0-5) were going to register their first Missouri Valley Conference win of the season. They rallied from a seven-point deficit to go ahead, 59-58, on a jumper by Austin Hill with 27 seconds remaining.
SIU head coach Chris Lowery called timeout and drew up a play for his 6-foot-8 senior forward.
"(Illinois State) knew it was going to him and we still got it," Lowery said. "It worked to perfection. Everybody did their part to sell that play with a misdirection, and got (the defense) going one way and Carlton went the other."
Illinois State still had an opportunity to tie the game after Fay's 3-pointer, but Ekey bobbled the ball inside the lane and Saluki point guard Mykel Cleveland took it away from him with five seconds remaining. Fay then iced the victory with a pair of free throws.
Using their sixth-different starting lineup of the season, the Salukis came out of the gate slowly and fell behind by as many as seven points in the first half, before rallying to tie it, 32-32, at the break. Perhaps they were still smarting from an overtime loss to Creighton two days earlier.
"(Illinois State) played free and loosely and we were the ones that were more tight," Lowery said. "We knew what their record was. We just came off a game that we felt we should have won and we carried that over into the first half."
The Redbirds shot 50 percent from the field against the Salukis and a pair of 6-foot-9 forwards -- John Wilkins and Anthony Carmichael -- did much of the damage. They each scored 13 points.
"They got us in the paint," said Lowery. "Those young bigs are good now. They are really long and they can go get balls that a lot of teams can't."
Even so, Southern continued its rebounding dominance this season, out-boarding ISU, 31-24.
Another less impressive trend also reared its head as Southern committed 10 first-half turnovers and 18 in the game. The Salukis frequently struggled to decipher ISU's 1-3-1 zone.
"(Illinois State) had only been playing the 2-3 with a big fella up top, and we struggled with (the 1-3-1)," Lowery said.
Lowery credited Cleveland, who had four assists including a helping hand on the game-winner, for steadying the Salukis at the end.
"Mykel did a phenomenal job running the team and making sure guys were where they were supposed to be," Lowery said.
SIU is 3-2 in league play for the first time since 2007 -- the last season in which it won a conference title.
"We should be 4-1, but we made our own bed and we have to lie in it now," said Lowery, whose team has road trips to Missouri State and Northern Iowa next week.
The Salukis were without the services of two starters for most of the game. Center Gene Teague is still nursing an ankle sprain and played 10 minutes, including just one minute in the second half. Guard Justin Bocot played three minutes off the bench due to a knee injury he sustained in practice on Saturday.
