Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Men's Basketball hosts Indiana State on Saturday
01/09/2015 | 12:00:00 | Men's Basketball
CARBONDALE, Ill. - The Southern Illinois University men's basketball team hosts Indiana State at 3:05 p.m. on Saturday. The Salukis (7-9, 0-3) are looking to snap a five-game losing streak, while the Sycamores (7-8, 3-0) have won three in a row. The ongoing special pricing for lower bowl tickets remains in effect. Seats in both end zones are available for $10.
| Indiana State (7-8, 3-0) at Southern Illinois (7-9, 0-3) | |
| Date | Saturday, Jan. 10, 2015 |
| Time | 3:05 p.m. CT |
| Location | Carbondale, Ill., SIU Arena (8,339) |
| Game Notes | Southern Illinois  |
| Radio | Saluki Sports Network |
| TV | WAWV - Terre Haute, Ind. |
| Live Video | Saluki All-Access |
| Live Video | ESPN3 |
| Live Audio | Stretch Internet |
| Live Stats | Stat Broadcast |
| Social Media | @SIU_Basketball |
Q&A with head coach Barry Hinson
What would you say is the mood of the team right now? How are you trying to keep the spirits positive and keep guys motivated?
"I think there's two ways to look at this: you can get up in the morning and you can decide that you want to buck up and bow your neck and get after it, or you can just quit. I met with them yesterday and I said `I just got my announcement in the mail. Did anybody else get theirs? The pity party's been cancelled.' That was the message to our guys. I've said this and I'm going to say this again: I stand by these kids. They're good enough. This is not a talent issue. This is a 7-inch issue, this is an issue between their ears. Some of them have bigger heads, so maybe 7 or 8 inches but it's between their ears. It's not a strategic deal, it's not anything other than that they need a little bit of confidence. I think I've said this to you guys a bunch this season. We knew we were going to go through a time when our maturity and our level of experience was going to be a problem. We knew that we were going to go through some growing pains. None of this is new to me. I think the positive of this is that we're going through it right now and not at the end of the season. There's been so much speculation early on, why did we play the schedule that we played, and it wasn't a tough schedule. I knew that, but hopefully people are looking up now and realizing that we weren't ready to play a schedule of a magnitude where we get our tails beat night in and night out. I would say that of the five losses that we've had, certainly I'm extremely disappointed with one of them. For the most part all the other teams that beat us have beat us. They were better than us that night. I think we're making great strides defensively. My gosh, we can't play much better defensively than what we are right now. We just have to take the pressure off by making a couple shots."
Is that confidence something that only comes by getting that first win in conference?
"I look at it from the side of being a competitor. There will be days where I play a round of golf and the hole just looks like it's as big as a 55-gallon drum, and there's days I just can't make a putt. I think what you have to do is you just have to see something positive happen. That's one of the things that we try to do. We went twice today. The reason we went twice is we took a specific amount of time to work on our offense and shooting so our guys could actually see them having some success. I was very upset yesterday. We didn't go long yesterday, but we had a circumstance where a player on our team missed a shot and his four teammates put their heads down. I absolutely lost it. You can't live life like that. You can't perform like that. You can't do anything in life like that. You've got everybody around you, your family, your co-workers, your co-employees. I don't want to go into a doctor's office and say `I've got the flu,' and have everybody in the doctor's office puts their head down like `Oh my gosh, we can't help you.' I don't want to do that. Right now, we have shooter's flu. There's an epidemic going on in Southern Illinois that happens to be in our gym. I've thrown out a couple of antibiotics here over the last couple of days, and we'll see if it works."
How has Anthony (Beane) been? I'm sure his frustration level is high.
"This is my approach with Anthony. This kid's extremely upset, because in my opinion, he feels like we're losing because of him. That is completely not right. This is the type of kid who thinks that he has to shoot the ball well and score points in order for us to win. He takes it personal, and it's eating him up. The weight of the world looks like it's on his shoulders right now. When no one else around you is scoring, it just adds that much more burden to you. I think that speaks volumes of his character and what type of kid he is. He's not a selfish kid. He wants our guys to win and he takes this personally, because he thinks he's a major part of it. He's a major part of our program, but he's not a major part of why we're getting beat. Nobody's scoring the basketball right now. As soon as we can get a guy here or there jump-started, I think that will help all of us."
How do you think he's going to deal with that this Saturday? He's taking the right shots, he's just not making them.
"I think that is the most important thing for him and us to understand. We are taking good shots, we're just not making them. Anthony may miss three or four shots in a row, but you know what we're going to do? We're going to continue to run stuff for him. I go back to what I originally said: I believe in our players. I believe in these kids. I do think it's a mental issue. I don't think it has anything to do with talent. I'm going to stand by that statement."
Do you consider going through Jordan (Caroline), going through Sean (O'Brien), or going through somebody else initially offensively instead of going through Anthony?
"I'm not going to show my cards here in the season, but there's a couple of things that we can do to help certain individuals and help us a little bit more. Right now it's hard because most teams will do something at the basket. They'll run some type of offense to get a shot at the basket. The problem is nobody's guarding us right now. Everybody's backed off. They're all packed in the paint, so that option's not available. We have to make some perimeter shots. When we make some perimeter shots, it'll free everybody else up."
Indiana State has really come on these last couple of games. What have you seen from them improvement-wise from early season to now?
"I'm going to use Indiana State as an example for us. First of all, I think right now Greg Lansing's the Coach of the Year in the Missouri Valley Conference. They lost five games in a row. They lost a heartbreaker in double overtime, they lost to UMKC, and they come right back out of that and they've won three-straight Valley conference games. Kudos to Greg and his staff, because I think that's phenomenal. I know another team that's lost five games in a row. There's hope. You guys have heard me tell this story. One of my favorite movies is Shawshank Redemption. I love it at the end when Morgan Freeman opens up the letter. `Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.' That's what I talk to our players about. I think one of the things that Indiana State has done is a reflection in the mirror for us. We have hope as well."
Will you use the same lineup? Will you keep Sean (O'Brien) at the three?
"I think right now that's what I look at doing. It depends on how we shoot around and all that on gameday. You guys have heard me say this a hundred times, but I don't make the starting lineup until we get through the first shootaround. I believe that you play how you practice. As of right now, the one thing that Sean does for us on the perimeter, is he give us a little bit more height, length, and rebounding. Sean's not afraid to throw the ball inside. The other thing that Sean's really good at is he's so intelligent. He knows how to read screens. He knows what's going on. I like him out there. It makes us a little bit better offensively."
How different is (Jake) Kitchell than (Seth) Tuttle?
"I think they're very similar. In my opinion, I think Kitchell's probably more comfortable facing the basket than with his back to the basket, where Seth is completely opposite of that. I know Seth hit a couple of threes on us the other night, but that was our game plan going in, the big guys were going to have to beat us. We weren't going to let the guards beat us. I think that's probably the comparison."
Did you feel like Ibby (Djimde) and Bola (Olaniyan) played well enough defensively to earn another shot?
"I don't think they did a great job defensively, but they're going to get another shot because there's nobody else who we can give another shot to. They're just going to have to get better."
How much pressure do you guys feel that you're going to have to make a three or make some perimeter shots?
"I don't feel any pressure. The pressure that I feel is to get up and do my best every day. I feel absolutely zero pressure. I don't like losing. I can't stand it. It drives me nuts. When I say I don't feel the pressure, I mean I'm not sleeping real well right now. It's not because of the pressure, it's how can I help my players? I wake up every day thinking what can I do to help these kids? These are my guys. It's just like raising a family. I worry about them all the time. I worry about their self-esteem. I worry about what can I do to help them get out of this slump? I constantly worry about these guys. As far as pressure, I don't feel any pressure. That's what I've tried to relay to these guys. I don't want them to feel that pressure either."
You mentioned you're encouraged by the defense you've been playing. Any other areas that you've been encouraged by?
"One of the things that we've done a good job of this year, is that for the most part we've gotten to the free throw line. We're one of the top 30 teams in the country at getting to the free throw line. Quite frankly, we're shooting free throws pretty well. I like our defensive numbers right now, and I really like our rebounding numbers. We've done a decent job. Bradley was out-rebounding their opponents by eight, but they didn't do that to us. Northern Iowa's out-rebounding their opponents, and they didn't do that to us. Like I said, right now it's just on the offensive end and we kind of need to get a jump start."
Tyler (Smithpeters) didn't play against Northern Iowa. Has he responded well? Do you feel like he'll play some minutes this weekend?
"I'm not going to speculate on how many minutes somebody's going to play. Let me answer that question not only for Tyler, but for everybody else. When you get to play is when you show me in practice that you want to play. That's when you come in to get extra work. You work your tail off. You have a little bit of fire in your gut. Until individuals get that, they're not going to play. I told you guys, the invitation has been sent. The pity party has been cancelled. Those guys who want to go to the pity party, they're not going to play for us. They're not dawgs. We want guys who want to be here, who act like they want to be here every day. Whether it be on the practice floor, or in film work and scout work. Let me reiterate, that's not specifically to one player. That's to several players. If you don't see a kid play during a ballgame, if you see a kid that doesn't get extended minutes, that's where I draw the line on it. That's where you make your decisions."
