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Southern Illinois will play at Colorado State on Nov. 27 as part of the Missouri Valley Conference-Mountain West Challenge series, the leagues announced on Thursday.  The Challenge Series features head-to-head competition between 10 Mountain West and 10 Missouri Valley teams annually, with each conference hosting five games apiece each season.

Southern Illinois returns all five starters from last year’s team that finished 20-13, 11-7 and in second place in the MVC. Colorado State returns three starters from last year’s team that finished 11-21, 4-14 and in 10th place in the MWC. Niko Medved, the former head coach at Drake, was hired as CSU’s head coach on March 26.

The Salukis are 3-3 in Challenge games dating back to the series inception in 2009. Southern has beaten Fresno State, Air Force and San Jose State, and has lost to New Mexico and UNLV twice.

In its history, SIU has played all of the current members of the Mountain West Conference and has a combined record of 22-9 against MWC teams. Last year, Southern split with the MWC, beating San Jose State at home and losing to Nevada at a neutral site. Southern is 2-1 all-time against Colorado State. The teams last met in Carbondale on Nov. 27, 2002 — an 83-71 Saluki win.