ST. LOUIS, MO — Saint Louis closed the game on a 22-12 run during the final eight minutes to rally for a 74-69 win over Southern Illinois on Wednesday night at Chaifetz Arena.

The Billikens (4-4) snapped a four-game losing streak behind a 20-point, nine-rebound performance by freshman guard Jordan Goodwin and some timely 3-pointers late in the game by Javon Bess.

Saint Louis started the night with only seven scholarship players, as backup big man D.J. Foreman was sidelined with illness. When starting guard Davell Roby left midway through the first half, SLU played the rest of the contest with just six players. Four never left the court during the second half.

“We can’t control whether the ball goes in the hole or not, but we can control what we do next,” said SLU head coach Travis Ford. “Our team showed a lot of character when (Roby) went out.”

The Salukis (4-3) let victory slip through their fingers down the stretch but showed flashes of promise with five players scoring in double figures, led by Jonathan Wiley’s career-high 19 points.

Bolstered by the return of point guard Marcus Bartley, who scored 12 points and added three assists in his debut, Southern’s offense was clicking early. Wiley’s layup with 12:16 in the first half gave SIU its biggest lead, 18-9. SLU rallied back to take a four-point lead later in the half, but SIU closed with a 10-2 run to grab a 36-32 halftime advantage.

Bartley scored nine points in the second half — six of them coming at the charity stripe — and demonstrated why head coach Barry Hinson has been singing his praises for weeks while the SLU transfer has been sitting out with injury.

“I thought (Marcus) played exceptionally well,” said Hinson. “He tried to split a ball screen and he took probably one ill-advised three, but other than that, I think you have to look at it and say, wow.”

The game see-sawed back and forth in the second half, but Southern appeared to take control after a pair of Bartley free throws gave the Salukis a 57-52 lead with 8:21 remaining.

The Billikens hung tough, though, using a 1-3-1 zone defense that caused the Salukis difficulty and helped lead to eight second-half turnovers.

“I think one of the reasons we struggled is we couldn’t see over it,” Hinson said. “We didn’t struggle against the 1-3-1 when Marcus was in the game. We did when our tiny guards were out there. The length kind of bothered us a bit.”

Bess hit his first of two treys with 4:59 remaining to tie the game, 61-61.

The battle of big men in foul trouble was finally won by SLU freshman center Hasahn French when he fouled out Kavion Pippen with 3:25 to go and the score tied, 63-63. French, who blocked four shots on the night, came up with the biggest defensive play of the game with three minutes remaining. He stripped Bartley and took the ball coast to coast for a dunk to break the tie.

“We knew (the 1-3-1) was coming, it didn’t surprise us,” Bartley said. “We just didn’t execute and that’s on me as a point guard. We didn’t work it around fast enough. Against a 1-3-1, you have to get the ball to the corner with pace.”

Southern came up empty on its next possession and Bess hit a 3-point dagger with 2:12 to put SLU up, 68-63.

Bartley hit a deep 3-pointer with 11 seconds left to cut the deficit to 72-69, but Saint Louis made 3-of-4 free throws in the closing seconds to seal the victory.

The Billikens averaged only 57 points during their losing streak, but they moved the ball efficiently in the half court, took shots late in the shot clock, and had an impressive 17-8 assist-to-turnovers ratio.

“This is a team that hasn’t been able to score most of the year and they did tonight,” Hinson said. “I’m not surprised — the players may be — but I knew we’d see the best Saint Louis team so far. That’s the best they’ve played.”

“As coaches, we’ve been searching 24 hours a day trying to figure out what can we do to help our basketball team,” Ford said. “We knew we were better than what we were showing.”

Box Score

http://siusalukis.com/boxscore.aspx?id=7936&path=mbball

By Tom Weber – siusalukis.com

Southern Illinois resumes its regional rivalry with Saint Louis on Wednesday night with a 7 p.m. game at Chaifetz Arena that will be televised on Fox Sports Midwest. The Billikens lead the all-time series, 29-26, including a 21-12 mark at home. The Salukis, however, have won the last two meetings between the schools.

Last year in Carbondale, Southern Illinois finished the game on a 14-3 run to win, 70-55. The game marked Sean Lloyd Jr.’s first-career start and he made a clutch 3-pointer with four minutes remaining. Two years ago in St. Louis, SIU rallied from a nine-point deficit to beat Saint Louis, 65-52. Anthony Beane, led SIU with 19 points. The team committed only four turnovers and grabbed 17 offensive rebounds.

Besides the 55 games against Saint Louis, the Salukis are 10-2 against the rest of the Atlantic 10 conference. Other than the Billikens, the last time Southern played an A10 team was versus St. Bonaventure on Nov. 25, 2013 at the Gulf Coast Showcase. SBU won, 83-71, and the Salukis were led by Desmar Jackson’s 25 points.

Kavion Pippen earns second Valley Newcomer of Week award

JUCO transfer C Kavion Pippen (6-10, 240, Jr.) leads the team in scoring (13.8), field goal attempts (64), percentage (.563) and blocked shots (14). He has scored in double figures in all five games. The nephew of NBA legend Scottie Pippen was named MVC Newcomer of the Week on Nov. 12 and again on Dec. 4 after scoring a career-high 22 points on 9-of-10 shooting versus San Jose State.

Sean Lloyd Jr. with consecutive career-highs

G Sean Lloyd Jr. (6-5, 210, Jr.) posted back-to-back games with a career-high 19 points (at Murray State, vs. SIUE). He is third on the team in scoring (11.2), third in rebounding (4.2), second in assists (15) and steals (9).

Aaron Cook improved from three

G Aaron Cook (6-2, 185, So.) has made dramatic improvement in his 3-point shooting percentage this season and has already surpassed last season’s total makes. In 2016-17, he was 5-for-27 (.185). This season, he is 8-for-17 (.471).

Salukis lead MVC in blocked shots and steals

The Salukis lead the MVC in blocked shots (4.8) and steals (8.0). They are also third in 3-point field goal defense (28.6), which ranks 28th in the nation. In the last two games, Southern’s opponents are 7-for-36 (.194) from 3-point range.

Eric McGill makes instant impact

G Eric McGill (6-2, 175, Jr.) is another juco transfer making an immediate impact for Saluki Basketball. He is the top sub off the bench, averaging 7.0 points, and leads the team with eight 3-pointers and 14 steals. He’s coming off a five-steal game vs. San Jose State.

Dawg Bites

•The road game at Saint Louis will be the team’s last true road game until MVC play starts at Northern Iowa on Dec. 28.
•The Salukis have won their last two games by an average margin of 22.5
•G Marcus Bartley (6-5, 193, Jr.) was cleared to practice on Dec. 4 and is expected to play off the bench versus Saint Louis. He was diagnosed with a broken bone in his right wrist on Oct. 25.
•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 88-consecutive games with at least one 3-point field goal and 996-consecutive games with at least one free throw (dating back to 1986).
•Hinson is 44-34 overall in non-conference games at SIU
•The Saint Louis game will be G Tyler Smithpeters 100th career game.

Head Coach Barry Hinson met with the media on Tuesday afternoon.

So SLU, how nice is it to play somebody who doesn’t have as many players as you?
I think we do have about the same amount, but I think SLU has a little bit more. I think they at least get to practice 5-on-5, whereas we just got to practice 5-on-5 practice here in the last couple of days. We all know what a big game this is, it’s a regional rivalry. We always look forward to this game, and I know they always look forward to this game. I think we’ll have a great crowd. Our fans seem to follow this game fairly well. I’d expect we’ll have at least 1,000 fans there. I’ll be surprised if we don’t. Two road trips ago, they sold out the first game that we played there. That was when we had all those freshman, Jordan Caroline was a freshman. That was a sell-out for them, so we’re looking forward to it.

What is it about SLU that makes it a rivalry? Is it the proximity, that you played such good battles the last couple years…

Well I think that there’s several variables that go into a regional rivalry, but I think one obviously is regional. Two, that you have another Midwest powerhouse, mid-major level right in your backyard. You are competitors in the recruiting part. All our players, for the most part, have played against in summer basketball or high school basketball, so the rosters are really familiar to each one and the staff are really familiar because we recruit the same players. I’d say, in my opinion, this is one of the better, healthier rivalries you’re going to find, and it’s never been a heated rivalry. It’s always been a healthy rivalry. I go back to playing these guys to back at Southwest Missouri, or coached at Southwest Missouri State, so this has always been a fun game for both parts.

Do you know Travis Ford well?

I know Travis; I wouldn’t say that I know him well. I try to know Travis as much as I could because he was the head coach at my alma mater. I think the world of Travis. Every time I’ve been around him, he’s been more than pleasant. I do respect him as a coach; I think he is an outstanding coach. As a player, he was something very special. Very few guys have their jerseys retired in the rafters of the building.

You had 5 or 6 guys playing as a unit in the last 10/12/14 minutes of the game as well as anything I’ve seen in a long time here.

Yeah, I think if you wanna get right down into specifics the 3:34 mark and the 3:54 mark of the last two games, we’ve played about as good of basketball as we could to those marks. Now, if you want to start at those marks, then we’ve played about the worst, but that’s to be expected. There at the end of the game like that, you have unusual lineups, but I don’t disagree with you. I think our guys, and I want to say as a unit defensively, that’s about as well as we can play. We were really guarding our tails off.

Whitey Herzog, who I’m sure you’ve met, he used to say he was a much better manager when he had a good closer.

I can tell you I’m a lot better coach because I’ve got better players. It never fails. Players win games, coaches don’t win games. Coaches win practices. Players win games, they always have and they always will. It’s our job to prepare these guys as much as we can in a practice environment, but I have very little to do with what goes on during a game. If people want to give us credit, they can give credit to those young men out on the floor.

It seems to me that there’s more pressure on you know.

Well, I don’t know about the pressure part, nobody’s going to put more pressure on me than myself. I’m about as relaxed and comfortable as I’ve been in 36 years of coaching. I think that has a lot to do with the talent level we have on the floor. I have to give a lot to our staff. They’ve done a great job; they’ve done a great job recruiting. I think this program, I don’t think, I know, we’re headed in the right direction. We’re turning the corner. That’s what they hired us to do, and that’s what we’re doing.