Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Men's Basketball plays pivotal game at Evansville on Saturday
02/19/2016 | 12:00:00 | Men's Basketball
CARBONDALE, Ill. - Southern Illinois (21-7, 10-5) travels to Evansville (21-7, 10-5) for a 3 p.m. game between two teams tied for third place in the Missouri Valley Conference standings. The Purple Aces won the first meeting between the teams in Carbondale when D.J. Balentine hit a 3-pointer with 1.5 seconds left in regulation to force overtime, where Evansville prevailed, 85-78.
| Southern Illinois (21-7, 10-5) at Evansville (21-7, 10-5) | |
| Date | Saturday, Feb. 20, 2016 |
| Time | 3 p.m. CT |
| Location | Evansville, Ind. • Ford Center (10,000) |
| Game Notes | Southern Illinois  |
| Radio | Saluki Sports Network |
| Watch | FS Midwest, Comcast Chicago, ESPN3 John Rooney, Rich Zvosek |
| Watch | ESPN3 |
| Live Audio | CBS All-Access |
| Live Stats | Stat Broadcast |
| Social Media | @SIU_Basketball |
Head coach Barry Hinson met with the media on Friday before practice
You denied Egidijus Mockevicius the ball pretty well the last time you played. How do you do that again?
I think it's three-fold. I've always said this -- to guard a really good big man, you have to have ball pressure, obviously the guy guarding the big man has to do a good job, and whoever is behind him has to be alerted that he's on the help-side as well. In the last ballgame we played against the, Bola (Olaniyan) played extremely well. He got around, he used his athleticism, and our ball pressure, for the most part, was pretty good.
Do you change anything you did the last time?
I think this time of year you have to. You have to make certain adjustments. We know they're going to play Anthony (Beane) a little bit different, just like Bradley did. Everybody's going to trap him. We've worked on that prior and he still got 14 shots (vs. Bradley) and of the 14 shots, I think 12 of them were great looks, he just didn't make them. I think we'll do some things differently. Not in a holistic approach, not where you just say we're switching from man to zone. We'll tinker with things like matchups.
The way they screen you, do you have to be pretty good assignment-wise?
I think we've gotten better defensively on the year. It's difficult when you have as many new players as we had coming in. When I say new players, I mean new players who were going to play an enormous amount -- Austin (Weiher), Armon (Fletcher), Michael (Rodriguez), Leo (Vincent) -- Deng (Leek) hasn't played a ton of minutes, Ibby (Djimde) didn't play a ton of minutes last year. All those guys had to revert a little bit and go systematic like build a foundation for it. I do think we've improved quite a bit.
How has Vincent looked in practice? He's not making the shots he used to.
I think Michael and Leo are getting ready to play their best basketball of the year. Every player goes through it, but specifically, every junior college player goes through a slump period, and I think they're through theirs. It's hard because you're not used to the daily grind, you're not used to the extensive scouting reports that not only you have to be focused on, but the scouting reports that are about you. People have figured out how to guard Michael, people have figured out how to guard Leo, so now what you have to do is adjust your game. Michael has certainly done that and Leo has adjusted, he just has to step up and make some shots.
Have you seen Beane working even harder since the last game?
We took Thursday off and I went back after looking at the stats, and when you shoot as bad as we did from the three, we didn't offensive rebound, we didn't shoot free throws well, to me -- that had a little bit of fatigue factor on it. It couldn't have been because of practice because we've really cut back our practices, but it could have been because of mental fatigue. We cut back Thursday -- we did yoga, we did stretching, we did rehab, we had a lot of guys doing the cold-water tub.
How has O'Brien helped take pressure off of Anthony?
I don't think there's any question Sean O'Brien is playing his best basketball right now. It's not so much what Sean does, but what are they going to do to stop Sean? I think they're going to have to make adjustments. We know for a fact Sean can cause them some issues and some problems, so we will play through Sean a lot, much like we did at Northern Iowa.
What kind of challenges does Jaylon Moore present?
I think Moore is a solid player. We did a great job here in our game against everybody but (Mislav) Brzoja. He gets off 25 and has a career night. In these games, there's always one guy who all of the sudden steps out and does something. Against Bradley, it was Sean O'Brien for us. Who's it going to be at Evansville? People are going to do their very best to take away what Anthony does. You don't score, 31-31 in two-straight games and people don't send everything they have at you.
