Men's Basketball hosts San Jose State on Saturday in MVC-Mountain West Challenge game

SAN JOSE STATE (2-4) at SOUTHERN ILLINOIS (3-2)
Dec. 2, 2017 • 3 p.m. CT
Carbondale, Ill. • SIU Arena (8,284)
First Meeting

Southern Illinois returns to action on Saturday at 3 p.m. when it hosts San Jose State as part of the Missouri Valley Conference-Mountain West Challenge series. The Salukis are 2-3 in MVC-MWC Challenge games, which started in 2009.

Nov. 21, 2009: at UNLV (L, 69-78)
Dec. 1, 2010: New Mexico (L, 59-74)
Nov. 28, 2012: Fresno State (W, 57-54)
Nov. 13, 2015: Air Force (W, 77-75)
Dec. 19, 2016: at UNLV (L, 61-68)

San Jose State is the only team in the 11-member Mountain West Conference that Southern Illinois has never played. SIU has a combined record of 21-8 against MWC teams, including a 10-1 mark at home against the league. Saluki head coach Barry Hinson is 3-4 lifetime against current members of the MWC, including a 2-2 mark at Southern. He has wins over Air Force and Fresno State, and losses to UNLV and Utah State.

Sean Lloyd with consecutive career-highs
G Sean Lloyd (6-5, 210, Jr.) has posted back-to-back games with a career-high 19 points (at Murray State, vs. SIUE). He is second on the team in scoring (11.6), third in rebounding (4.2), second in assists (12) and leads the team in steals (9).

JUCOs make instant impact
JUCO transfers C Kavion Pippen (6-10, 240, Jr.) and G Eric McGill (6-2, 175, Jr.) have made an instant impact on Saluki Basketball. Pippen has scored in double figures in all five games, and leads the team in scoring (12.2 points) and blocked shots (11). The nephew of NBA legend Scottie Pippen was named MVC Newcomer of the Week on Nov. 12. McGill has also impressed, averaging 8.0 points off the bench and leading the team with eight 3-pointers.

Aaron Cook improved from three
G Aaron Cook (6-2, 185, So.) has made dramatic improvement in his 3-point shooting percentage this season and has already surpassed last season's total makes. In 2016-17, he was 5-for-27 (.185). This season, he is 6-for-13 (.462).

Salukis among the nation's best in 3-point defense
The Salukis rank 37th in the nation in 3-point field goal percentage defense (.289). The only team to shoot better than 35 percent from long range against SIU was Murray State (.375).

Dawg Bites
•The 27-point win over SIUE was the largest margin of victory for SIU since beating North Texas by 32 on Dec. 5, 2015.
•The Salukis held SIUE to 19.4 percent shooting in the first half (6-for-31), which ranks as the third-best defensive field goal percentage in a half in school history.
•Beginning with SIUE, the Salukis play six of seven games at home.
•G Marcus Bartley (6-5, 193, Jr.) was diagnosed with a broken bone in his right wrist on Oct. 25 and is expected to miss six weeks.
•F Thik Bol (6-8, 202, Sr.) had knee surgery on Nov. 3 and is expected to miss approximately six weeks.
•SIU has gone 87-consecutive games with at least one 3-point field goal and 995-consecutive games with at least one free throw (dating back to 1986).
•Hinson is 43-34 overall in non-conference games at SIU and 22-16 at during the month of November.

Head coach Barry Hinson met with the media before practice on Friday.

San Jose State rebounds like crazy — is this a team you can zone?
We haven't played any zone this year, so my gut going into this game is it's not part of our prerogative. We would not like to do that. We do one to play zone, we think we can be good at it, but right now with all the injuries we've had, our rotation in our zone defense wouldn't be very good. I think when we get everybody back and we can settle into a rotation, our zone defense will be a lot better. You are correct — they rebound extremely well. They beat Bowling Green in every statistical category with the exception of turnovers. That's amazing. This is the best interior team we've played with the exception of Louisville. If you're looking at their record and thinking this is going to be an easy game, that's the trap of all traps. Their opponents are [17-13]. This is a good basketball team. They've got a brand-new coach who knows all about us and was at Wichita State for years. We'll have to play extremely well to win this game and if we go into the game without three starters it will be extremely difficult for us.

On the San Jose State front court.
I think they're the most physical and aggressive bigs we've seen in quite some time at the mid-major level. I don't think they're quite to the talent level of what Louisville has, but as far as physicality, they're every bit as physical as what Louisville was. That's meant as a great compliment.

How well do you think Kavion Pippen has done as the focal point of the offense?
We talk about optimism and I want our fans to be optimistic. I'm optimistic. I'm a pretty easy book to read. I always told you I'm a bad Texas Hold 'Em poker player. The optimism to me is exactly what you just said — all of these young men, including Kavion and Aaron Cook and Eric McGill and Brendon Gooch and Rudolph Stradnieks — all of these guys have gotten experience they wouldn't have gotten had Thik (Bol) been healthy or had Marcus (Bartley) been healthy. So we have to look at this in a positive way.

In all honesty, if we just want to lay it on the table, we are one game behind probably what we think we ought to be, and that's still including two unbelievable road games at Winthrop and at Murray. You all know that there's no one who thought we'd win at Winthrop, but we kind of got the expectations out of whack there a little bit to start off. We're one game behind and if we can go back and steal one without these two starters then we're right back where we should be.

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