Men's Basketball renews regional rivalry with SEMO on Saturday

SEMO (5-4) at SOUTHERN ILLINOIS (4-3)
Dec. 9, 2017 • 7 p.m. CT
Carbondale, Ill. • SIU Arena (8,284)
SERIES: SIU leads 69-46 (H: 43-14, A: 24-32, N: 2-0)

Southern Illinois plays another regional rival when it hosts SEMO on Saturday at 7 p.m. at SIU Arena in a game that will be televised live on ESPN3. Since the series between the schools resumed in 1993, Southern Illinois has won 13 of 15 meetings versus the Redhawks. The Salukis are 9-0 all-time against SEMO at SIU Arena.

The teams last met two years ago in Carbondale on Dec. 2, 2015. Sean O'Brien posted his third-straight double-double with 22 points and 11 rebounds as SIU recorded a 74-50 victory. Anthony Beane scored 16 points and Austin Weiher added 10. Current Saluki G Eric McGill had four points in 27 minutes for SEMO. The Salukis have five players remaining from the 2015-16 team. No players remain from that season's Redhawks roster.

Barry Hinson versus the OVC
Barry Hinson has a lifetime 16-8 record against Ohio Valley Conference teams, including a 2-3 mark against SEMO. Since arriving at SIU in 2012, Hinson is 12-6 versus the OVC. The Salukis have already played two OVC teams this season — losing at Murray State and beating SIUE at home.

Marcus Bartley makes debut
After missing the first six games of the season with a broken wrist, Saint Louis transfer G Marcus Bartley (6-5, 193, Jr.) made his Saluki debut on Wednesday at Saint Louis. In 24 minutes off the bench, he had 12 points and three assists. After the game, Hinson said Bartley will be the team's starting point guard going forward.

Jonathan Wiley breakout peformer
F Jonathan Wiley (6-7, 201, Sr.) did not reach double figures in scoring in his first 36 games as a Saluki. Since then, he has hit double figures in three-straight games, including a career-high 19 points at Saint Louis on Wednesday.

Salukis among national leaders in 3-point defense, blocks, steals
The Salukis rank No. 25 in 3-point field goal defense (28.4). No opponent has shot better than 40 percent from three against SIU. Southern is also No. 82 in blocked shots per game (4.4) and No. 86 in steals per game (7.4).

Dawg Bites
•The Salukis begin a stretch of four home games in a 10-day span.
•SIU has led at halftime of every game except Louisville.
•SIU has outscored opponents at home by an average of 16.7 points per game.
•In the last four games, SIU is shooting 79.4 percent from the free throw line.
•F Thik Bol (6-8, 202, Sr.) had knee surgery on Nov. 3 and is not expected to return until late December.
•SIU has gone 89-consecutive games with at least one 3-point field goal and 997-consecutive games with at least one free throw (dating back to 1986).
•Hinson is 44-35 overall in non-conference games at SIU

Head coach Barry Hinson met with the media prior to Friday's practice.

How will it help having Marcus Bartley in the starting lineup?
I think it will help us tremendously. We've talked about this all along — any time you can put a point guard on the floor that's 6-foot-4 and can see above things — and when you take a player of Marcus' magnitude and you put him on the floor, it automatically makes you better. We'll go through some growing pains with our rotation trying to figure out what's the best way to rotate these guys, but that's a nice problem to have.

Saint Louis is a team that gets most of its points off driving on you, so I thought zone might work a little better?
Well, we say that, we got bombarded on offensive rebounding (in zone). When we were in man, we didn't get out-rebounded. In one possession of our zone defense they got three-straight offensive rebounds. It's a Catch-22. The weakness of a zone defense is offensive rebounding because there are no individual responsibilities. There are zone responsibilities. That's why a lot of people don't play a lot of zone because they want the individual accountability on block out.

What are you impressions of SEMO?
They're scoring 79 points a game. If we think this is going to be the SEMO of the past, those days are over. They're better than us in every statistical category with the exception of a couple of them. This is going to be a dog-fight. We know it's going to be a dogfight. We'd better be ready to play. Once again, throw the stats out the window, the record, because it's a regional rivalry. You know what this is — this is a big game, a really big game for them.

(Denzel) Mahoney and Brewer are Batman and Robin. Those two are getting 19 and 12 (points per game). (Ray) Kowalski just had his career high the other night. Last game against UMKC they scored 91 points. They shot the ball extremely well from the perimeter. They have seven guys that can shoot the three. Four of their guys shoot better than our top percentage shooter.

Who's your Joker, your Riddler to stop these guys?
We hope Sean (Lloyd) will take the role of being the defender. It's amazing to me when Sean comes into a ballgame and locks in that he's going to guard somebody defensively, it's amazing how well he plays offensively. Because Mahoney and Brewer are a two and three, that's going to come down to the guys coming off the bench that we sub in to stop those guys on the perimeter and hopefully we can.

How much does this four-game homestand matter for your team's confidence, development?
I think it means a lot. This is a critical time for us. Now we have everybody (except Thik Bol). It gives us a chance to get into a rotation. It's a nice little stand for us right now. Lamar is going to come in here with one loss, 9-1. North Carolina A&T is going to come in here with a winning record. Nevada, including Louisville, will be the best team we played all year long. Duquesne is ranked above Saint Louis. Of all of our opponents coming up, we've got a really good schedule to play. I think we're going to find out a lot about our basketball team in the next few games.

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