Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Men's Basketball plays at Indiana State on Saturday
02/19/2015 | 12:00:00 | Men's Basketball
CARBONDALE, Ill. - The Southern Illinois University men's basketball team plays at Indiana State on Saturday at 12:05 CT. The Salukis (10-18, 3-12) are searching for their first conference road win of the season. The Sycamores (13-14, 9-6) won the first meeting this year between the schools, 59-56, on Jan. 10 in Carbondale, when Devonte Brown made a 3-pointer with two seconds left.
| Southern Illinois (10-18, 3-12) at Indiana State (13-14, 9-6) | |
| Date | Saturday, Feb. 21, 2015 |
| Time | 12:05 p.m. CT |
| Location | Terre Haute, Ind. • Hulman Center (10,200) |
| Game Notes | Southern Illinois  |
| Radio | Saluki Sports Network |
| TV | Comcast Chicago, WDKA-49, Darren Kinnard and Kent Williams |
| 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 Thursday's practice.
When Indiana State came here, they beat you on a last-second shot. Do you feel you're better equipped now to handle that situation?
I think we're certainly playing better at the end of ball games and making better decisions, but I'll be quite frank, the two shots that they hit to close out the game -- we wouldn't have guarded those shots under those circumstances. I mean, they were transition pull-ups behind the NBA line, so I can't even fathom they do that, and if they do that consistently, they're going to beat a lot of people. That's the thing they do so well that scares us -- they shoot the ball from the perimeter well. They have four guys shooting at 40 percent clicks or above. They're shooting 41 percent from the three in the conference, which is really a great stat. They didn't play extremely well at Missouri State last night down the stretch, they had some critical turnovers and some critical block-out moments, but Missouri State was also back to full-speed with all their guys. We expect this to be extremely difficult. We had a chance to win up there last year and we hope to have another chance this year.
Can you pinpoint the defensive struggles the last couple of weeks?
I think for the most part, maybe using a shorter rotation was a part of that, but not against Wichita State. I go back and look at the Wichita State game and they played really, really well. I look at what we did, and other than the zone defense, I thought for the most part we were decent. They just got us a couple of times on some miscommunications with our big guys. I do think we played a little better than what people thought we played against Wichita State after looking at the film.
You did a good job against (Jake) Kitchell and (Justin) Gant the first time. Do you feel like Indiana State is a team you match up well with?
I don't know who we match up with well. It depends on who is playing well on our roster. With Ibby (Djimde) and Bola (Olaniyan) playing better than what they have, I do think we match up a little bit bigger and better. Bola gives us that rebounding advantage when his head is right. If he will continue to play like he's practiced the last five or six days, then I do think he can be an impact on the game.
So you feel like he's going to get back in the mix?
Well, I felt like that going into the Wichita State game. Then again, we've had moments where he's gone in and out. It will be interesting to see what he does, but I anticipate he'll be ready to play. His attitude has certainly been good. We took yesterday off to let them recharge their battery a little bit, and we're to the point in time in the season where we don't go quite as long as we have been. I anticipate all of our guys will be fresh and ready to go. I can't speak for Jalen (Pendleton) -- as of right now he's still out with a concussion, but we won't make that until a game-time decision.
Offensively, what do you stress to prevent the ball from sticking, to get a little better movement?
Quite frankly, I think our offense has really been pretty good here over the last two weeks. We've moved the ball better than we have all year long. I was really encouraged by what I saw against Wichita State. We moved the ball well, we got the ball inside, we attacked off our inside-outside rotation really well. We just have to make shots. We didn't make them the other night.
