Southern Illinois University
13-10,7-3MVC
Drake
15-8,5-5MVC
Salukis snap Drake's 15-game home court winning streak
02/01/2020 | 7:38:00 | Men's Basketball
"I'm really proud of our guys," SIU head coach Bryan Mullins said. "We know how good Drake plays at home with their home court winning streak. It was a big challenge for us, and I think our guys took that. I think we started the game and the second half extremely well, and that carried us through the game."
SIU (13-10, 7-3 MVC) won its fifth-straight game to extend the MVC's longest active winning streak -- and the Salukis were underdogs in all five games. Four of the five wins in the streak are against teams in the top half of the MVC standings.
"The first play, I got a good look. The ball bounced around a little bit and went in, and I just kind of knew it might be my night tonight," Domask said.
McGill, who was coming off a 27-point game in SIU's win over Loyola, kept rolling. He had 19 points, 5 rebounds and 2 steals. More importantly, he committed only one turnover against Drake's constant pressure.And Benson poured in 16 points, 6 rebounds and a career-high 5 assists. He also helped limit Drake star 7-footer Liam Robbins to just 8 points on 4-of-11 shooting.
"Barret was huge," Mullins said. "He scored for us when he got the ball, and he did a great job defensively on Robbins. He's been playing at a high level these last couple games."
Drake took a 13-11 lead about eight minutes into the game. From there, SIU dominated the middle of the game. The Salukis started that with a 14-0 run to take a 25-13 lead. SIU led by 13 at halftime, 42-29, and then started the second half on an 8-0 run to take a 21-point lead at the Knapp Center, where Drake had been 35-5 over the last three years.
Domask and McGill hit arguably the two biggest shots of the game. Drake got on a run, and the Knapp Center crowd of 4,030 started roaring when the Bulldogs cut SIU's lead to single-digits. But McGill hit a long 3-pointer at the shotclock buzzer to put SIU back up 11, and Domask hit another one on the next possession to put SIU back up 14 and quiet the crowd.
With those three rolling, SIU piled up its highest scoring game of the season and its second-best shooting game, hitting 51% from the field for the game. The Salukis were 13-of-20 from the 3-point line.
Drake got as close as 5 in the game's final minute, but Domask found Ronnie Suggs Jr. for a dunk behind the press, and then McGill's second steal of the game sealed the win.
UP NEXT: SIU travels to Evansville for a 6 p.m. game on Wednesday, February 5. SIU will be trying to win six-straight MVC games for the first time since 2007.
NOTES: SIU has won back-to-back road games after starting the year 0-7 on the road ... SIU improved to 6-0 when McGill and Benson both score in double figures ... SIU has won 25-straight games when scoring 75+ points ... In the last 3 years, SIU is 2-1 at Knapp Center and everyone else is 4-34 ... SIU is 9-3 in its last 12 games after starting the year 4-7 ... SIU's five-game MVC winning streak match's the program's longest since the 2017-18 season. SIU's last 6+ game MVC win streak came in 2006-07 (10 games) ... Marcus Domask's 28 points were the most by an MVC freshman since Darrell Brown had 34 vs. Hofstra in 2016 and most for an MVC freshman vs. an MVC team since Milton Doyle had 28 vs. UNI in 2014.
