Southern Illinois University
Northern Iowa
Men's Basketball goes for season sweep versus Northern Iowa
01/19/2018 | 4:23:00 | Men's Basketball
- NORTHERN IOWA (10-9, 2-5) at SOUTHERN ILLINOIS (11-9, 3-4)
- Jan. 21, 2018 • 3 p.m. CT
- Carbondale, Ill. • SIU Arena (8,284)
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Southern Illinois will look for its first season sweep of Northern Iowa since 2003 when the teams square off on Sunday at 3 p.m. in a game televised on ESPN3. The Salukis won at Cedar Falls, 56-53, on Dec. 28. The Panthers snapped a seven-game losing streak last week with wins over Valparaiso and Drake, however they are 0-4 on the road this season. The Salukis have lost three of their last four games, but all three of the losses were on the road. Southern is 21-7 all-time versus UNI at SIU Arena.
Head coach Barry Hinson met with the media before Friday's practice.
How different is Northern Iowa with Austin Phyfe starting in place of Bennett Koch?
He's certainly playing with a lot of confidence. He reminds me a little bit of (Cameron) Krutwig, which that should be scary to us because of how we just guarded him. He has certainly come in at a time when they needed him. Now that Koch is playing better, now you've got three bigs with (Klint) Carlson, Phyfe and Koch. I think that's one of the reasons they're starting to win. You have three big guys starting to play well. I still think this is one of the best teams in the Valley. I think they're following almost in the same track as they were last year that they started off really slow and ended up with a bang.
What is (Tywhon) Pickford doing to get as many rebounds as he does at 6-foot-4?
I think any time you're a good rebounder I think it comes down to one simple fact that you're tuned into it and you want to do it. I've never met an offensive rebounder that is not a go-getter. If you want to be a rebounder, you just have to have a motor. One of the greatest players of all-time that I've ever witnessed was Dennis Rodman, and he was a phenomenal go-getter. I was anxious to see Dennis, because Dennis played at Southeast Oklahoma State, so I knew of Dennis way before his days with the Bulls. Southeast Oklahoma State University is just a little NAIA school — it was at that time Division II. It's amazing when you want to do something, you put your mind to it, I think that's what Pickford's done.
I think your team's effort has been really good, but what do you look at their focus?
You just hit it. That was one of the words we wrote on the board before we went out on the floor at Loyola, was the word focus. We live in an age now of millennials and we lose our focus. Most of our focus deprivation takes place when we get tired. We met this morning as a staff. I just tried over the last 24-48 hours to try to figure out, thinking outside of the box, what are some things we can do? The bottom line is, guys, we're playing six players. We've got to find a way to get seven and eight on the floor. Right now, it's just hard because everything is magnified.
How can Kavion Pippen get deeper position and a better look at the basket?
I think his position is not too bad. The positioning that we had at Valpo was awful. Kavion has to accept that he has a target on his back now. He's got to accept that everybody is going to be physical with him. He's shying away from contact and you can't do that as a big guy. I will say this, the last three games I think he's gotten better position, he's just not scoring down there right now. A lot of that has to do with the fatigue factor. We've got to find a way to give him some breathing times. That will help if we can get Rudy (Stradnieks) out there and get him some more minutes.
We haven't seen Austin Weiher. Is he struggling in practice?
It's just not an option right now. I wish it was. If I saw something every day in practice, if I saw something there — that's quite frankly a question we talked about this morning in our staff meeting. Right now, it's just not an option for us.
Wednesday will be the halfway point of the conference season — do you feel like you know you're team's identity or still struggling with what lineup works best?
We don't have much of a lineup issue because this is all we've got. It is what it is. The good news is it doesn't matter who you start. We know who we're going to play. We're going to play solidly six guys. Seven or eight are going to play based on fouls or sickness or injuries. With six guys it doesn't matter. I like Tyler (Smithpeters) coming off the bench because it gives us a spark. Loyola does the same thing with (Aundre) Jackson. You bring a guy off the bench who gives you a spark, and Tyler has done that for us. I don't know how much we can change with what we have. There's only two ways we can go. When Kavion gets in foul trouble and Rudy's not playing to our expectations, we go small. Now can we go small a lot? In the league we're fortunate where we can every once in a while.
Realistically, you're probably not going to get in the NIT as an at-large. Are you more likely to pursue another tournament?
I'd like to tell you yes, and here's the reason why — for those seniors, and specifically Jonathan Wiley. If we could put ourselves in a position where this young man played more basketball, I can't even begin to tell you how emotional I was when we got the news and we had to tell Jonathan (that he was out 6-8 weeks with knee injury). So if there's anything that I can do within my control as a head coach, that you were able to tell me, coach there's a way you can get this young man a chance to play more basketball, then I'd like to do that. I'm not being selfish, I'm being selfish for Jonathan.
