Women's Basketball hosts Indiana State, Evansville this weekend

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- The Southern Illinois University women's basketball team hosts Indiana State and Evansville at Banterra Center this weekend. Southern takes on Indiana State on Friday at 6 p.m. before hosting Evansville on Sunday at 2 p.m. Both games will be broadcast on ESPN+ and can be heard locally on Magic 95.1 FM.

Promotions

• Friday night is National Girls and Women in Sports Day. There will be a girls leadership fair around the concourse of the Banterra Center. There will be stations led by female student-athletes and coaches along with discussions about role models, opportunities that sports provide for women and much more. The Charlotte West Role Model Award will presented at halftime.
• Amy (Rakers) Fogle will have her jersey retired at halftime of Friday's game. Fogle graduated from SIU in 1991 as its all-time leading scorer and was named to the MVC All-Centennial Team and is enshrined in the SIU Athletics Hall of Fame.
• Sunday's game is SIU's "We Back Pat" game.

All-Time vs. the Sycamores

• The Salukis and the Sycamores meet for the 97th time in a series that dates back to the 1968-69 season.
• SIU has won 10 of the last 12 meetings and lead the all-time series 50-46.
• The road team has won the last three meetings between the two teams.
• In the first meeting this season, Southern set season-bests in both field goal percentage (57.7%) and three-point field goal percentage (57.1%) in a 78-55 win. SIU also recorded 26 assists on 30 field goals, won the rebounding battle, 32-to-24, and came away with 10 steals on 15 turnovers.

Current Salukis vs. the Sycamores

• Abby Brockmeyer is averaging 10.6 points, 7.1 boards and 1.5 blocks against the Sycamores in six previous meetings.
• Nicole Martin is averaging 12.3 points and 6.1 rebounds per game in eight career meetings against Indiana State. Martin finished with 16 points and seven boards in SIU's win on Jan. 26, 2020.
• Makenzie Silvey is averaging 12.6 points and 2.8 assists in six games against the Sycamores. Silvey has reached double figures in five of her six career games against Indiana State, including 23 points on 9-of-12 shooting on Jan. 26, 2020.

Amy Rakers to have jersey retired

• Amy Rakers will join Sue Faber as the only two players in program history to have their jerseys retired at halftime on Friday night's game.
• A two-time All-Gateway First Team selection, Amy Rakers left the Saluki women's basketball program as its all-time leading scorer- a record that stood for 25 years.
• Amy put together the best statistical season in program history as a junior, as she led the Gateway Conference in both scoring and rebounding and was named the conference's Player of the Year.
• That season, she set a school record for points scored in a single-season and scored 32 points in the Gateway Conference Championship game to help SIU advance to the NCAA Tournament for the third time in five years.
• Amy was named to the Gateway Conference's All-Decade Team and later earned a spot on the MVC All-Centennial Team.
• A 1996 Saluki Athletics Hall of Fame inductee, Amy played a season of professional basketball in Japan after graduation and later went into coaching.

Taking care of the ball

• Southern has committed the fewest total turnovers (335) in the Missouri Valley Conference and their 14.6 turnovers per game are also the fewest in the Valley.
• SIU's win over Bradley marked the 17th time during Coach Stein's tenure that the Salukis have finished with single-digit turnovers. Southern holds an 11-6 (.647) record in those games with four of the six losses coming by four points or fewer.
• Since 1985, SIU holds a .674 winning percentage (29-14) in games where it turns the ball over nine times or fewer.

15-plus assists

• The Salukis have finished with 15 or more assists in 13 games this season.
• SIU ranks third in the Valley, and 43rd nationally, with a 15.5 assists per game average.

Disrupting Passing Lanes

• Southern has notched 10-plus steals in nine games this season, including four-straight games.
• SIU's four-game streak of 10-plus steals is the longest since last season, when Southern posted five-straight games with 10-plus steals.
• The Salukis came away with 15 steals against Missouri State on Feb. 15, which marked the 40th time in Cindy Stein's seven year tenure as head coach that Southern has finished with double-digit steals.
• Kristen Nelson has recorded at least one steal in 18-straight games.
• Brittney Patrick has tallied at least one steal in her last eight games and is averaging 4.0 steals per game over her last five games.
• Patrick, who recorded six steals against Bradley (Feb. 2) and five versus Drake (Feb. 7) became the first Saluki with back-to-back five-plus steal games since Mercedes Griffin did so in 2014.
• Southern's 19 steals agains Drake on Feb. 7 were its most in a game since Nov. 12, 2007 in a 71-55 win over Christian Brothers.

Climbing up the charts

• Nicole Martin scored a team-high 14 points against Missouri State and ranks ninth on SIU's all-time scoring list.
• Martin is the fifth Saluki during the Stein era to crack the Top-10 in scoring in program history. Martin joins Cartaesha Macklin (1st; 1,779), Rishonda Napier (2nd; 1,728), Dyana Pierre (7th; 1,425) and Kylie Giebelhausen (10th; 1,298) in that club.
• Martin is also just the sixth player in program history, and first since Amy Rakers in 1991, to tally 1200 points/600 rebounds/100 steals/50 blocks in a career. In addition to Rakers, Martin joins Mary Berghuis, Sue Faber, Char Warring and Bridgett Bonds as the only Salukis to accomplish the feat.

Dishing out helpers

• Brittney Patrick dished out an assist against Missouri State to become the ninth Saluki with 350 career assists.
• Patrick ranks seventh in the Valley in both assists per game (4.0) and assist-to-turnover ratio (1.44).
• The senior point guard is also second in the league in steals per game (1.9).
• Kasia McClendon was the last Saluki to lead the league in steals per game, as she led both the NCAA and MVC with a 4.7 steals per game average in 1997.

Calendar

Upcoming Events