Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Men's Basketball travels to Evansville on Saturday
01/23/2015 | 12:00:00 | Men's Basketball
CARBONDALE, Ill. - The Southern Illinois University men's basketball team plays at Evansville on Saturday at 3 p.m. The Salukis (9-11, 2-5) have won their last two games. The Purple Aces (14-5, 4-3) have lost their last two home games.
| Southern Illinois (9-11, 2-5) at Evansville (14-5, 4-3) | |
| Date | Saturday, Jan. 24, 2015 |
| Time | 3:05 p.m. CT |
| Location | Evansville, Ind. • Ford Center (10,000) |
| Game Notes | Southern Illinois  |
| Radio | Saluki Sports Network |
| TV | MVC TV (FSN Midwest, Comcast Chicago |
| Streaming Video | ESPN3 |
| Streaming Audio | Stretch Internet |
| Live Stats | Stat broadcast |
| Social Media | @SIU_Basketball |
Head coach Barry Hinson met with the media prior to Friday's practice. Have you seen more confidence of the team after these last two wins?
Yeah, I think that's pretty normal when you win a couple of games that your confidence level grows. I said after the Loyola game and the Bradley game, this will be a marker game for us. When I say that, certainly we're going to go in and try to win, but I don't think we have to win this game to find out where we are. I do think we have to play well to see who we are. The second half of the Bradley game was really encouraging to me. Encouraging because of the fact that we did not come out and play extremely well from about the 17-minute mark to the 14-minute mark. We got up 5-0 on them and had a little run and then we got our bellies full and we really didn't compete after that. But then all of a sudden a light came on for the guys and we started executing. I'm really excited to go into this game because it's a unique game, because Evansville plays differently than anybody in our league. So it will be a really focused and mature game for us to see how our young guys can play. This is their first look at Balentine, their first look at Mockevicius. Mockevicius is really playing well and it'll be a challenge for us.
What kind of match-up problem does he pose for your squad?
I think anytime you have a guy who's going to shoot the ball upwards to 15-20 times in a ballgame, it just requires focus. The thing that D.J. does so well is when he shoots the basketball he really doesn't take bad shots and then a lot of times he just dumps them off on little switch-outs to the big kids. He's just a smart player. Now last year was an anomaly. What we did last year was phenomenal. We held him to two points and certainly he was an emphasis then. Quite frankly, he'll be an emphasis again for this game. But his supporting cast is a little different this year. They're a little better than what they were last year and it'll just be interesting to see how this plays out.
Other than confidence, what else have you noticed from your team from the past two wins?
What we've done that I just haven't noticed before is we rebounded the basketball and we guarded well. If you look at our defensive numbers and our rebounding numbers, they're far better than what they were in previous years. I've always said this, regardless of what you do offensively, as long as you guard and rebound, you can put yourselves in position to win. The flipside of that, as long as you guard and rebound, you have the opportunity to get more offensive possessions and I think that's helped us a little bit. There's no secret to this: Anthony is playing better. Would you in your wildest dreams have fathomed this kid shooting 3 percent from the 3-point line? No, none of us. No way in the world we would've thought he would go 1-for-26. People can do a great job defensively on him, but he didn't go 1-for-26 because people were guarding him. It was just mental. Hopefully, this is over because we're not going to win a lot of ball games when he struggles offensively. We're just not to that point right now.
Did you work with him, knowing where he's at along the 3-point line? It seemed like he had a lot that were just right inside that 3-point line.
Here's what I did. This is what I told him, and I think this is important. It's almost like talking to a pitcher who's throwing a no hitter - a lot of times you just leave them alone because they're putting enough pressure on themselves. So what I do as a coach, my strategy has and always will be, I try to take the attention off the obvious and put the attention on something else. Here's what I told Anthony. Lose yourself defensively. Lose yourself in what you do on the defensive end of the floor. Now let's see what he did on defense. He lost himself into [Milton] Doyle - held him to six points. He lost himself into [Tramique] Sutherland and I don't think Sutherland scored in double figures. He had two games back-to-back where he played really well defensively. Now we go back and look at what he did offensively, and he played much better on offense because in all honesty we put the pressure on the defense which took some of the pressure off offensively.
Does it look like mentally and physically the weight of the world is off of his shoulders?
I can see that just by coming out of my office. I want them to come on by every day just to come by and say hey. This was a big deal to me because I spoke to him yesterday and we always take a moment to do teaching times. It's like a minister being in a pulpit, when you see your congregation shaking their head or saying "Preach on brother" or "Amen" you'll get more confidence as a preacher. As a coach, when you're sitting there talking and you see someone shaking their head like Anthony was yesterday, it makes it a lot different for us right now.
Jalen has been stepping it up lately, is he going to get specific playing time in the game?
That's a great observation and I think the reason he is playing well is because of how we're playing and what we're doing right now. I don't anticipate anything that will change. Certainly, time can change and a lot of it has to do with our lineups. I do think there's a chance that Evansville will play a smaller lineup and rotate our kids which will obviously allow him more time and Deion more time.
What kind of role do you want him to play in the game?
Exactly what he's doing. The role I need him to do is exactly what he's doing. We don't need Jalen to shoot the basketball; we need Jalen to score at the right times and he's done that. Jalen needs to move the basketball, get the assist, then defense and rebound. When he does that, we're a much better ball club.
Now that he's older, do you feel that for him tomorrow's game is going home and it's a situation where when you're young, you tend to put pressure on yourself to really go above and beyond when you go back to your home town, do you feel like he's at the point where that doesn't matter or doesn't affect him as much?
I would have to let him answer that question. I have never had a player who has gone back home and done extremely well because they put so much pressure on themselves. It is one of the things I will visit with him about, I will tell him to lose yourself in the game. Because playing hard, playing unselfish and playing smart are things where you don't need to go to the tank to do that. If you can focus on those three things, everything else will take care of itself.
Evansville is a very good shooting team. Do you think that's because they take quality shots or what would you say about that?
I think they take very good shots and you have to give a lot of credit to the coach. I think he puts them in a position to get great shots. He is one of the hardest guys to prepare for and I think he is one of the best coaches in this league. He is just an old-school guy, an Indiana guy. I told you this before, I think those guys once they come out of their mother's womb they are taking their first shot. I think it's inbred in those guys. They just shoot the ball well. I always go through my pre-game notes that if in case we have to foul somebody, who do we have to foul? And normally, on most occasions, there's five or six guys but there's really only two guys on Evansville's squad. It is a nightmare looking at their free throw stats. If we ever get into a foul situation, it's going to be a bad deal for us.
