Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Men's Basketball plays at SIUE on Wednesday night
12/02/2014 | 12:00:00 | Men's Basketball
CARBONDALE, Ill. - The Southern Illinois University men's basketball team travels to Edwardsville, Ill. to play at sister school SIUE on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. The game will be televised regionally on Fox Sports Midwest.
| Southern Illinois (3-3) at SIUE (1-3) | |
| Date | Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2014 |
| Time | 7:00 p.m. CT |
| Location | Edwardsville, Ill. - Vadalabene Center (4,000) |
| Radio | Saluki Sports Network |
| TV | Fox Sports Midwest |
| Live Video | OVC Digital Network |
| Live Audio | Stretch Internet |
| Game Notes | Southern Illinois  |
| Live Stats | Stat Broadcast |
| Social Media | @SIU_Basketball |
Q&A with Head Coach Barry Hinson
Q: You challenged your team to speak up more, have you seen your team do that in practice?
"We have had some good practices and preparations. At the same time, we have done that before and laid an egg out on the wood. Hopefully, we can play better than what we did against Olivet. I do think that we will play with more energy because I am not going to practice them for five-and-a-half hours in a 24-hour period before we play. I know that for a fact. We will go today for two hours and that includes our shoot around at Edwardsville. When you practice a team like we did, you are not going to have a lot of legs and you are not going to shoot the ball extremely well. We felt like we could do that and still come out of the game with a victory, and that is why I chose to do that. I wanted to send a message to our players. Whether the message was sent out or not, we will find out tomorrow night."
Q: Do you like how the schedule is set this year?
"I obviously like the schedule because I set it up for our guys. I think that the biggest mistake about our program, is that we live in the past way too much. We are not one of the teams of the past. We are not respected amongst the arena of college basketball right now. We were picked seventh this year, eighth last year, and tenth a year before. I think that people want to live in the past where we are playing the Indiana's and Butler's. We are not that team anymore. I am sorry, but we are not that team. As soon as we figure that out, people will let this scheduling deal go. What we did for this program for this year is to put us in a position to have some sort of success, if we can indeed do that. If you look at our schedule to this point, we are 3-3 with a non-Division I win. If we played anyone tougher than we have played now, we would be 0-6. That is not the best way to start with a young team.
I am real happy the way we put our schedule. I think that we put together a schedule that gives us a challenge for our guys. People say that you are playing Austin Peay, Chicago State...they beat us last year. We are just hoping we can get a win over those guys. Certainly, the way we directed our schedule I think will help us. Last year we went 4-9 in non-conference. That was me and I wasn't happy with our schedule last year. I am the guy that took complete blame for it. Hopefully, we can have a better record in our non-conference."
Q: Have you been happy with your rebounding effort?
"Not at all. As a matter of fact, our teams have rebounded and guarded well. Now we are guarding and I think that we are doing a good job of guarding. If we can keep our guarding percentage numbers where we are right now, I will take those and go to the house. We are right at 40 percent, it would be nice if we could be 39 or under because that is what we shoot for. At 40 percent, I will take that right now. The leading offensive rebounder in the conference right now is Jordan Caroline and we don't even think that he goes to the glass very much. That is a big area for us to improve on."
Q: Is there a chance we see more Deng Leek?
"As Deng improves in practice, I think that is a chance that we can see a little bit more of him. A lot of that will be dictated on how the game goes with foul trouble and injuries; just like we have run into with Ibby (Djimde). I thought he had some productive minutes in the first half the other night. The problem is, defensively he can do somethings for us, right now offensively it is a little bit of a stretch for him."
Q: Is it fair to say that the Cougars are a drive and dish team?
"Yeah, as a matter of fact, that is their forte. If you look at their assist-to-turnover ratio, it is really impressive. We have to find a way to keep the basketball out of the paint and do a good job of that. Consequently, we have to do a great job of that offensively and try and find a way to get the ball in the paint."
Q: Health-wise, are you guys doing ok going into the game?
"As far as we know, with the exception of Ibby. We do have a virus going around right now and we quarantined a couple of guys. We will see if they come out of that. Everyone is telling me that it is a 24 hour deal, but we have a couple of guys with a virus right now."
Q: What about the rivalry with SIUE being a sister school?
"Well, I think that you have a natural-born rivalry because you have a sister school. It is obviously a huge game for both schools. You have the president who watches over both schools. For me, it is not a rivalry game. For me it is just a big game because you are playing someone in your local area that you recruit in the same area with. To me, I look at games through the recruiting eyeglass. We recruit the St. Louis area. For me, it is a big game recruiting-wise. For us, it is another game on the road. We get the opportunity to put all of these road losses behind us. We have lost three road games already this year and are 2-3 on the road this year. In all honesty we are 1-3 because one of those games had 64 people in the stands, including the concession workers. That to me wasn't a road game."
Q: Do you want to see the series continue?
"Right now, everyone wants to know what we are doing with scheduling. Because of the new scheduling criteria with the MVC, it is going to be interesting to see because we can't really schedule anyone with an RPI above 200. You only have a limited amount of teams you can do that with. It is going to be interesting to see especially in the league what other teams do. You have guys like Wichita State buying anywhere from five to six games, Bradley four to five games, and Illinois State buying four to five games. All of a sudden, you have everyone buying games but there are no more teams to be bought. It is going to be interesting to see what happens with our scheduling. We would certainly like to continue this series because I think that it is a good series for both schools and a great series for our pans. This is going to be dictated by our new scheduling criteria by the Valley. We are going to have to wait and see because it based on numbers and we have to wait till the season is over.
I came from the days of the league when we were getting 5-to-6 teams in the Tournament every year. I came from a place at Missouri State in my nine years, we only played three non-Division I teams. We always played one of the toughest schedules when I was there. We hope to get back to that point with this group here."
