Southern Illinois University
4-2
San Jose State
2-5
Kavion Pippen near-perfect in Men's Basketball's 76-58 win over San Jose State
12/02/2017 | 6:35:00 | Men's Basketball
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Center Kavion Pippen scored a career-high 22 points and only missed one shot to lead Southern Illinois to a 76-58 win over San Jose State on Saturday in a game that was part of the Missouri Valley Conference - Mountain West Challenge series.
A 6-foot-10 junior college transfer, Pippen has easily been SIU's best and most consistent player through six games. He's the team's leading scorer and has reached double figures in every contest. Today, he made 9-of-10 shots from the field, blocked three shots on defense and grabbed four steals.
Southern's gameplan was to pound the ball inside to the big man and soften up the defense to open up the perimeter. The first half of the equation worked perfectly, with Pippen and forward Jonathan Wiley making 14-of-17 shots.
"I think you have to give a lot of credit to our guards," said SIU head coach Barry Hinson. "Our guards did a good job of getting (Pippen) the basketball."
Pippen's emergence has been the biggest surprise of the season so far and has offset the loss of senior center Thik Bol, who continues to rehab a knee injury. Last season at Three Rivers Community College, Pippen averaged 10.5 points. At SIU, he's now averaging 13.8 points.
"He's a sponge, he's learning, he's getting better," Hinson said. "I'm telling you guys — he has a chance to be a special player."
The Salukis (4-2) never trailed in the contest, but the offense labored at times in the first half. While Pippen was scoring down low, the rest of the squad was 1-for-11 from 3-point range. SIU led, 29-20, at halftime, but had to rush a number of its shots late in the shot clock.
"We had two really bad possessions where we shot threes from our pockets — we were looking for Buffalo nickels," Hinson joked. "I was frustrated with our guys because we didn't execute. Second half — we executed better."
Meanwhile, the Spartans (2-5) struggled just to run their offense, turning the ball over a dozen times in the first half and 20 times overall.
"Turnovers have been a problem for us all year," said Jean Prioleau, who was named head coach at San Jose State on Aug. 4 after the abrupt resignation of his predecessor Dave Wojcik. "If we can somehow not (turn the ball over), we can try and set our defense. The problem is when we turn the ball over or take a quick shot, the other team gets it and we're not able to get back quick enough to try and slow it down. That would be called transition defense."
One out of every three Spartans possessions was a turnover and that led to frequent break-away buckets for Southern, which outscored the visitors, 14-0, on fast breaks.
"They were turnover-prone statistically and we wanted to make sure we kept heat on them at all times," Hinson said.
Although the Salukis converted only 4-of-18 shots from outside the arc, they made 67 percent of their two-point tries and pushed the lead to as many as 28 points in the second half. Also in double-figure scoring for SIU was Armon Fletcher (15), Aaron Cook (12) and Wiley (10).
"We keep telling our guys — lose yourself defensively and the offense will come," Hinson explained. "When it comes, it's going to come in waves. It came in waves today a little bit. We're very capable of being explosive."
The Salukis improved to 3-3 all-time in the MVC-MWC series, which dates back to 2009, with their three wins coming at home over Fresno State, Air Force and San Jose State.
