Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Men's Basketball preps for Kent State Invitational
11/19/2014 | 12:00:00 | Men's Basketball
CARBONDALE, Ill. - The Southern Illinois University men's basketball team travels to Northeast Ohio this weekend for the Kent State Invitational. The Salukis (1-1) will play the host Golden Flashes (2-0) on Friday at 6:30 p.m. CT. They play Yale (1-1) at 4 p.m. on Saturday, and UIC at noon on Sunday. None of the games will be televised, though a video stream of Friday night's matchup will be available at KentStateSports.com.
| Southern Illinois at Kent State | |
| Date | Friday, Nov. 21, 2014 |
| Time | 6:30 p.m. CT |
| Location | Kent, Ohio, M.A.C. Center (6,327) |
| Game Notes | Southern Illinois  |
| Radio | Saluki Sports Network |
| TV | None |
| Live Video | Kent State Sports |
| Live Audio | Stretch Internet |
| Live Stats | Live Stats |
| Social Media | @SIU_Basketball |
Q&A with head coach Barry Hinson.
Q: How has Sean O'Brien accepted his new role?
"Well, he is one rebound away from having back-to-back doubles. I talked to his mom and dad last night and I told them that all along last year that we knew that this was the best place for him to play at this position, because he would give so many people problems. How can you argue when a kid is one rebound away from averaging a double-double in his first two games? I think that he is like a duck in water now, where last year he would have been a duck out of water. I think what he has done not only offensively, but defensively has been probably our best improvement of a player in a year in a long time."
Q: How does Sean move forward and how do you challenge him?
"The thing for us with Sean right now, he has got to improve offensively. He has some things that he has to do offensively, but I am not going to get into those, because I don't want to do that as far as the scouting report. The other thing that Sean has to do his get continually better defensively. There are times when he struggles with that, but a lot of that reason is that we are riding the horse for so long right now. We have got to find somebody right now that can come in and give him a few minutes. With the injury to Ibby (Djimde), it has really hurt us as far as sharing time with those guys. With Ibby, you could put him and Jordan (Caroline) together a little bit. It is hard to play in a game, especially last night, with Ibby and Bola (Olaniyan) in the game at the same time. That means that a Dawson Verhines or a Jalen Pendleton is going to have to go back to that hybrid mode and give us a little bit of ample time. I think probably right now that candidate is Dawson."
Q: What are the challenges when you have Bola and Jordan on the court at the same time?
"We did that last night and it was a bad substitution by my part. It took us completely out of rhythm in the game. We wanted to look at our young guys together and we wanted to rest Sean. We did that and it really took us out of rhythm. I made a comment last night that I was the only guy that could guard Anthony Beane, and that was by keeping him on the bench. It was one of those decisions that I made for the betterment of our team and we did that because we wanted to make sure that we could get some of those young guy experience, but they were just not quite ready to play at that level yet."
Q: What did you think of the play of Anthony Beane?
"This is my 34th year of coaching, and I have never seen a guy play a first half that didn't miss a shot and didn't touch the rim. One of the officials commented that he doesn't think he touched the rim on any of his shots. He was 4-of-4 from threes, and that tells you how special he was. To score 24 points and not miss a shot, I thought that it was spectacular. Even in the second half, I thought he played fairly well considering that I took him out of his rhythm by sitting him for so long. We don't expect Anthony to get us 30 points every game, but it is certainly the Anthony Beane that we grew to love in the last eight games that we saw him play last year. I think that he is coming of his own right now."
Q: What other players could you see having an offensive impact?
"We know that Chaz Glotta, Deion Lavender, and K.C Goodwin can all shoot the basketball. We know that and we see it every day in practice. K.C has certainly made the transition faster than the other two freshmen. Those guys have got to either get mad or get ready to go. Their maturation process has to speed up quite frankly in order for them to get onto the floor. Right now, we don't measure those guys by what they are doing offensively, because we are scoring points. We scored points in our exhibition games, we didn't score points in the last six minutes against Saint Louis, but we scored up until that point. I think that we are a better offensive group than we have had since we have been here. I think that we will only improve. Our interior guys right now are not scoring very well. Bola and Jordan have got to be able to score for us. They were more comfortable last night, but Jordan missed five shots around the basket, and that is not characteristic of him."
Q: Bola has not finished well either, but are you comfortable with the shots and looks he is getting?
"We are very comfortable with what Bola is doing pre-shot. He is getting the ball, working his tail off, and he is getting in the right spots. I do think that he made improvements from Saint Louis to this game. He still came down with 10 rebounds and how can you argue with a guy that gets 10 rebounds? Our expectations here, not only as a staff but also as a fan base has grown. We look around the community and people are starting to see that we are making a few turns for the progress. Hopefully, he can meet those expectations, and I think that he will."
Q: What do you expect from Kent State?
"Right now, we are all like geese flying through a snowstorm and I said that last week. We are kind of blinded. There hasn't been enough games to know what to expect. They have won two ball games. One was on the road and the other was against a non-Division I team. We are going into much like the last two games we have gone into. We really don't know what to expect, we will just have to make adjustments on the fly."
Q: What can the team do differently defensively to stop one player from being a high-scoring player?
"If one guy scores 50 on us, but we win and hold the team to under 39 percent or lower field goal percentage, I am going to come out the game saying that we did a good job. (Austin) McBroom gets 27 against us, but goes 1-of-8 last night against Indiana State. The key is to win the ball game. I don't get caught up with guys scoring on us. Certainly we make adjustments, but if they are still shooting in the 30s, then you know you have to be doing something pretty special defensively. I'll take anything under 40 night in and night out. To be honest, if you are at 39 percent in field goal defense, you are going to be one of the top defensive teams in the country."
Q: How do you like your chances this weekend?
"All three of the games are going to be difficult, and for us, all games are going to be difficult. I said the other day and I don't mean it in a negative way, we are not a dog yet, we are puppies. We have to grow and we have to continue to grow. We are the puppy dog Salukis. We have to get better. Last night was a prime example. I don't have a crystal ball, but I've been in this business long enough to know that young guys can't handle a 20 point lead like that and we certainly didn't. We got our bellies full. We came in and we were too satisfied. My expectations is to go in and do what we can to win the first game. I don't even look at the second or third games. I have always done that in conference tournaments and I have been fortunate to play in four of those championship games. You just take it one game at a time."
Q: Is Ibby's knee injury something that he will be 100 percent when he gets back?
"He'll never be 100 percent this year -- got no shot, got no shot. I can only tell you what the doctors have told me -- it's a 4-6 week healing process. It will be a roller coaster year for Ibby as far as in-and-out. It was certainly a blow to us because he's such an offensive weapon down low and can make shots from 18 feet and free throws. Injuries never come at a good time."
Q: Any thoughts of pulling Austin Weiher's redshirt?
"No. No. No. There's not a chance. He's not ready."
