Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Southern Illinois University
11-15, 5-10MVC
Creighton
16-11, 8-7MVC
| Team | 1 | 2 | F |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southern Illinois | 19 | 31 | 50 |
| Creighton | 31 | 38 | 69 |
Creighton handles Men's Basketball, 69-50
02/13/2011 | 12:00:00 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 13, 2011
By Tom Weber
SIUSalukis.com
OMAHA, Neb. - Creighton exploited a weakened Southern Illinois team in the paint and then finished them off from the 3-point line, coasting to a 69-50 victory on Sunday night.
The Bluejays (16-11, 8-7), who have won seven-straight meetings between the teams, out-rebounded the Salukis (11-15, 5-10) by a 37-23 margin. SIU had no one to contain 6-foot-9, 270-pound center Gregory Echenique, who scored 12 points and grabbed 14 rebounds.
The game unfolded much differently than the Jan. 7 overtime contest in Carbondale, also won by Creighton. In the first meeting, the Salukis had a double-digit rebounding advantage.
This time, though, the Salukis were essentially minus five players. Gene Teague, Mykel Cleveland and Troy Long were all serving the final game of their three-game suspension. Meanwhile, John Freeman (sprained wrist) and Justin Bocot (sprained ankle) toughed it out to play 24 minutes combined. Neither player scored as they attempted just one shot.
"We've got guys who are hobbled, and (Creighton) took advantage of it," Saluki head coach Chris Lowery said. "Effort wasn't an issue. We played hard enough. The big guy went to work on us and got what he wanted."
Teague would normally be the team's starting center, and without him, Southern was helpless to stop Echenique. Little more than six minutes into the game, Echenique had already drawn two fouls apiece on Carlton Fay and Davante Drinkard.
"Gregory had a different aggressiveness about him tonight," said Creighton head coach Greg McDermott. "Gregory demanded the ball down there tonight. He went and got rebounds through traffic, which he hadn't been doing consistently."
The Bluejays led by 12 at halftime and used a 9-0 run at the start of the second half to put the game safely in the win column. Echenique had six of those nine. The sophomore transfer from Rutgers posted his first double-double of the season and had a whopping seven offensive rebounds.
"Coming from the Big East, his expectation was this is probably going to be a little easier," said McDermott. "But it's a different game when you're not playing against guys your size. He's had to adjust to it. He's accepted coaching extremely well. The sky's the limit for the kid."
After upsetting league-leading Wichita State on Tuesday night, the Salukis had little chance from the onset to make it two in a row.
"We were able to knock SIU back on their heels," McDermott said. "Obviously, they didn't quit because they're a well-coached team, and they continued to grind."
Point guard Kendal Brown-Surles tried to keep his team in the game with 15 points and four assists. His three-point play with 14:46 remaining in the game drew the Salukis to within 15.
However, the front-court tandem of Carlton Fay and Mamadou Seck, who have carried the team all season, were mostly held in check, scoring 12 and seven points, respectively.
"Those are two guys who scored 34 against Wichita early in the week and we hold them to 19 combined," McDermott said. "That was our goal defensively coming into the game -- to slow those two down and make somebody else beat us."
In the first meeting between the teams, Seck had 18 points and 14 rebounds -- six of them on the offensive end. After playing all 40 minutes at Wichita on Tuesday, however, the league's leading rebounder wasn't nearly as active, gathering just two defensive boards.
"Seck had a much better game against us at their place than he did here," said McDermott, who admitted he was worried about the defensive matchup of Echenique guarding the wiry Seck. "Our goal was to keep him off the backboards. I thought Gregory did a good job of keeping him off and going and getting them himself."
"Seck ran out of gas -- he just had nothing left for us today," admitted Lowery.
Things were so dire for Southern that it resorted to a seldom-used 2-3 zone defense. That only served to create open shots from the outside for the Bluejays, who were 6-of-14 shooting from 3-point range.
With the loss, Southern Illinois is all but locked into a first-round play-in game at the 2011 State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament in St. Louis on Thursday, Mar. 3.
With three games remaining in the conference regular season, the Salukis trail both Creighton and Evansville by three games in the standings with three league games remaining.
