Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Southern Illinois University
9-2
North Texas
2-7
| Team | 1 | 2 | F |
|---|---|---|---|
| North Texas | 18 | 48 | 66 |
| Southern Illinois | 32 | 42 | 74 |
Men's Basketball holds off North Texas, 74-66
12/12/2015 | 12:00:00 | Men's Basketball
CARBONDALE, Ill. - Five players scored in double figures as Southern Illinois completed a season sweep of North Texas with a 74-66 win on Saturday night at SIU Arena.
The game was much more competitive than last week's 32-point drubbing in Denton. The contest was tied after nine minutes of play, before the Salukis (9-2) closed the half on a 21-7 run. SIU led by as many as 20 points early in the second half, but North Texas cut it to five, 48-43, with 7:50 remaining.
That's when SIU senior guard Anthony Beane took over. He stemmed the UNT rally with a 3-pointer and scored seven of his game-high 19 points in the final seven minutes. Sean O'Brien added 15 points for Southern, while Leo Vincent and Tyler Smithpeters each chipped in 11.
"We were a little sluggish in the second half and I'll take the blame for it, because we've gone after them hard the last few days," said SIU head coach Barry Hinson, whose team bounced back from Wednesday's loss to SIUE. "When you get beat on your home floor, you have to make a statement in practice. We ran out of energy in the second half."
The Mean Green (2-7) lost their seventh-straight game and are still looking for their first Division I win. They did some good things -- out-rebounding SIU, 43-31, for example -- but they had a nightmarish night from the free throw line (7-of-19) and committed 21 turnovers.
Just as they did last week, the Salukis feasted on UNT's 2-3 zone by making 9-of-18 shots from 3-point. In the two games combined versus the Mean Green, they made 19-of-32 from outside the arc. Beane was 3-of-6, Mike Rodriguez made 3-of-5, and Smithpeters made all three of his attempts from downtown. Meanwhile, Southern limited UNT to 5-of-20 from 3-point.
After building a 14-point halftime lead, SIU got a 3-ball from Smithpeters and three points from O'Brien to push the lead to 38-18. Unlike last Saturday when they fell behind, North Texas didn't cave in. Instead they stormed back with a 25-10 run over the next 10 minutes of play and put a scare into the crowd of 4,839 when Ja'Micahel Brown's 3-pointer cut the lead to just five points.
"We went up 20 at about the 17-minute mark and we just got disinterested from that point on," Hinson said. "I really never felt like the game was out of control. I felt ok."
Southern pushed back with an 11-2 run to expand the lead to 14, and the closest North Texas would get thereafter was seven points on a J-Mychal Reese 3-pointer with 30 seconds to go.
"The locker room was rather subdued when I went in it, because they knew we didn't finish the ballgame well, and I ran in and said, `We're 9-2!'" Hinson retold. "We were picked ninth. That's one spot from last place in the Valley, and right now we're on top of the Valley."
The Salukis used a 2-3 zone extensively in this game and they struggled to compete on the glass, as North Texas grabbed 21 offensive rebounds -- the most SIU has surrendered during the Hinson era.
"We're just going to struggle rebounding this year," Hinson said. "I hate it, but when you have Michael (Rodriguez), Tyler (Smithpeters), and Leo (Vincent) on the floor at the same time, there's a little bit of size differential there."
The fourth-year head coach inserted seldom-used 7-footer Deng Leek late in the first half and the senior center responded with seven rebounds in nine minutes of action. Hinson said Leek would play more minutes were he not a liability on the offensive end, where he missed all three shot attempts.
"Bless his heart -- it's a give and take," Hinson said. "We can run one thing offensively when Deng's in the ballgame, but he did what he had to do tonight. He set the tone. If we can just get him to understand do not shoot the ball, just dunk it, we can have a chance to play him some more."
SIU has now played seven non-conference home games -- the most in school history. They will play their next three games on the road, starting with a Dec. 18 matchup at Murray State.
"The next game is pretty special to me," Hinson said. "It's a big game."
