CARBONDALE, IL — Southern Illinois will look to extend its winning streak to three games when it plays at No. 18-ranked Louisville on Tuesday, in a rematch of a non-conference game SIU lost by 23 points at the KFC Yum! Center last December.

The Salukis (2-0) are 2-4 lifetime against the Cardinals (2-0). In last year’s meeting, Louisville scored the game’s first 13 points and led by as many as 25. Mike Rodriguez and Sean O’Brien led Southern with 15 points apiece.

Since 2000, the Salukis are 4-15 versus nationally ranked non-conference opponents. The wins came against No. 24 Indiana (2001), No. 23 Georgia (2002), No. 13 Butler (2007) and No. 24 Saint Mary’s (2007).

Louisville was a member of the Missouri Valley Conference from 1963 to 1974. During that timeframe, SIU beat the Cardinals twice. The win in Carbondale on Jan. 11, 1967 was especially memorable. SIU was a College Division program at the time, and Louisville was ranked No. 2 in the nation among University Division teams. Dick Garrett had 18 points to lead SIU, while Walt Frazier added 16. The Salukis went  24-2 that season, won the NIT title, and finished ranked No. 1 in the nation among College Division teams. Southern Illinois, which moved up to University Division status in 1967-68,  joined the MVC for the 1975-76 season.

The Salukis are 10-18 all-time against current members of the ACC. The last win against an ACC team came against Virginia Tech — a 63-48 victory in the NCAA Tournament on Mar. 18, 2007. Since then, SIU has lost to ACC foes Clemson (2011) and Louisville (2016).

The Salukis have won nine road games against Power Five teams in their history. The last time SIU beat a Power Five team on the road was at Colorado on March 16, 2000. The only other road meetings verus Power Five teams since then were losses at Indiana (2000, 2006), Illinois (2010), Missouri (2014) and Louisville (2016). 

SIU played three Power Five opponents last season. The Salukis lost to Arkansas, Minnesota and Louisville. The last time the Salukis beat a Power Five program was in 2008, when they defeated Oklahoma State at home  in the first round of the NIT. Since that game, they have lost 10 straight. 

Head Coach Barry Hinson met with the media prior to Monday’s practice.

Opening statement
“Well, I hope it opens better than what it did last year, because the shock and awe hit us last year and we were down 13-0 to start the game. But, we have a game plan, I’m not going to be open about what we’re going to, but actually on the way over we’re going to hound them again about what we’re going to do defensively and what we’re going to try to do offensively. Now we all know what the elephant in the room is, we have to handle their length, and we have to handle their athleticism, and we have to be able to make really good decisions offensively. Anybody that’s going to have a chance against these guys has to rebound and has to handle their length on the offensive end, and that’s a pretty big challenge. I don’t know if you remember last year, but they switched to all ball screens, and seven-foot guys were guarding Mike Rodriguez, so it’s the same thing we’re going to see this year. I don’t think we have to play perfect, I don’t think any team has to play perfect, but I don’t think we have room for big margin of error, we can’t make a lot of mistakes and have any success at all. Especially because we’re short-handed, it really puts an emphasis on everything we do on the half-court.”
 
On defending the taller Cardinals
“I think there’s two things you can do, you can either go get them, or you can back off a little bit and certainly we’re not a back-off type team. The big thing is when you go after their guards, you have to be able to contain their penetration, and we’ve gotten better at that. Our defensive numbers are the reason we’re 2-0. It’s not what we’re doing offensively. Our defensive numbers have been pretty good in the first two games and specifically in the second half at Winthrop and the entire game against Illinois-Springfield, I thought we did a good job defensively.
 
On the matchup for Salukis center Kavion Pippen
“I think it’s a huge test not only for Kavion, but for Rudy (Stradnieks), maybe Austin (Weiher), but for all of us. Can you get shots at the rim? When you do you have to take advantage of them, which we didn’t do the other night. How many shots you get at the rim is limited because of their size, so going into this game you have to make outside shots. If you don’t make outside shots, which we didn’t the other night, it really puts you behind the 8-ball, and you got to find a way to spread the floor and open it up a little bit.
 
In Kavion’s defense, and even in our players’ defense, every time we had the ball on the perimeter there were five guys surrounding them. I don’t think Louisville will quite play us like we’ve seen, I don’t imagine they’re going to double Kavion because, why would they? They’ve got 6’11”-7’0″ guys that can guard him so he’ll be alone by himself. Now If they double him, that means it’s a good thing for us.”
 
On Armon Fletcher’s knee
“I want everybody to understand, we will never, ever, play a player if we feel like we’re doing any damage to his body. Yeah it (pain) can improve with possibly strength and conditioning, we got to do some stuff outside of basketball in order to help him, but this is not something that we can continue to hurt him. His mother informed me that she has the same issue and this is a genetic, a family thing, but his pain tolerance was pretty good at Winthrop because he didn’t even tell anybody, he didn’t let anybody know. I think that speaks volume about Armon and his pain tolerance. I said this morning, I called myself “Vegas Charlie” I took a huge gamble this weekend and we obviously know the gamble was putting him on the bench (against UIS), but that just shows you how much I care about these kids, that even in the point of losing a game, we don’t want to hurt our guys at all and we will help them as much as possible.”

CARBONDALE, IL. — Southern Illinois has signed 6-foot-9, 215-pound forward Amadou Fall to a National Letter of Intent, head coach Barry Hinson announced on Wednesday.

A native of Senegal, Fall will play a post-graduate year in 2017-18 at St. Louis Christian Academy and will be a freshman at Southern next fall. He has spent the last two years at SEED Academy in Africa. Launched in 2002, the SEED Academy is the first basketball student-athlete academy in Africa. Up to 40 high potential student-athletes, boys and girls, live, train and work towards achieving their goal of attending university.

“Every once in a while as a college basketball coach, you’re able to find someone that no one else knows about,” said SIU head coach Barry Hinson. “We discovered Amadou, literally, a week or two after he arrived in the States.”

Fall is the seventh foreign-born player Hinson has signed during his six seasons at SIU and the fifth from Africa — the most recent being Bola Olaniyan (Nigeria), Ibby Djimde (Mali), Deng Leek (Sudan) and Thik Bol (Sudan).

“We’ve developed an African tradition of recruiting since I’ve been here,” Hinson said. “We’ve always had somebody from Africa on our squads as long as I’ve been here as a coach and we’ve had great success with these young men.”

Fall joins a 2018 recruiting class that also includes Carbondale High School point guard Darius Beane and Lincoln Way-East forward Sam Shafer, who both signed last week.

By Tom Weber, siusalukis.com

Southern Illinois junior center Kavion Pippen was named the Missouri Valley Conference Newcomer of the Week, the league announced on Monday.

In his first career game at SIU, Pippen recorded a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds in the team’s 81-66 win at Winthrop last Friday. He was 5-of-12 from the field and 5-of-6 from the free throw line, and added three blocked shots and two steals.

A nephew of NBA legend Scottie Pippen, Kavion is a 6-foot-10, 240-pound center who came to Southern after spending two seasons at Three Rivers Community College.

Saluki guard Sean Lloyd picking up a dunk in last night’s win against Winthorp. (siusalukis.com photo)

By Tom Weber – siusalukis.com

ROCK HILL, S.C. — A bigger, stronger Southern Illinois team turned up the defensive pressure on Winthrop in the second half and pulled away for an impressive 81-66 win in the season opener for both schools on Friday night.

The Salukis (1-0) led 46-41 at halftime, but they ramped up the defensive intensity in the final 20 minutes, as the Eagles (0-1) ended up with more second-half turnovers (9) than baskets (7).

Southern had a size advantage at every position, which resulted in a 42-27 win on the boards. It was even more noticeable with the number of deflected passes and steals (11).

“We just got really stagnant and that’s a credit to their defense, their length,” said Winthrop head coach Pat Kelsey. “They got out in passing lanes and tried to disrupt us a little bit. We played a little too much one-on-one. We didn’t have a lot of ball reversal and people movement. We got very, very stagnant.”

Two defenders in particular helped turn the tide for Southern — Sean Lloyd and Eric McGill. Between them they had seven steals.

Lloyd had a huge, momentum-changing theft late in the first half. The Salukis were leading, 40-39, and had almost relinquished an 11-point lead, when Lloyd swiped the ball from  Xavier Cooks in the back court and finished with a one-hand jam. The junior guard stuffed the stat sheet with 15 points, seven rebounds, four assists and four steals.

McGill, a junior college transfer, came off the bench and recorded all three of his steals in the second half. Even better, he turned all three steals into buckets of his own. He had 12 points and was 5-of-7 from the field.

“He changed the game in the second half, but he changed the game on the defensive end,” said SIU head coach Barry Hinson. “They couldn’t get around him.”

The game looked like it would be a shoot-out in the first half, as baskets came easily for both clubs. The Salukis pounded the ball inside to 6-foot-10 center Kavion Pippen early, and he had his way against Winthrop’s smallish front line. Playing in his first Division I game, the juco transfer had 12 first-half points and 15 overall. He also had 10 rebounds, three blocks and two steals. Pippen’s offensive put-back with 7:38 to go in the first half stretched SIU’s lead to 31-20.

“He’s an aircraft carrier,” said Kelsey. “He’s pretty agile for a kid his size. He’s a big, strong physical presence.”

The bulk of the minutes for SIU were distributed among seven players, and everyone had a hand in the victory. Junior guard Armon Fletcher showed no ill effects from an injury that kept him out of practice all week, as he scored 14 points and grabbed five rebounds. Playing in his first game in more than a year, senior guard Tyler Smithpeters had nine points off the bench.

Jonathan Wiley only scored six points, but he did a solid job defending Cooks — Winthrop’s best player  — holding him to 14 points before fouling out. The Eagles ran much of their half-court offense through Cooks, and the wiry 6-foot-8 forward looked frustrated at times. He finished with seven turnovers.

“I felt like we frustrated him,” Hinson said. “He had to score most of his points off the free throw line. He was certainly a focal point for us.”

The Salukis scored 47 first-half points, the first time they’ve topped 40 in a first half since last year’s non-conference win at SIUE. They also shot 52 percent from the field on the night, including 7-of-17 from downtown, which helped them overcome 18 turnovers.

Winthrop lost three of its top four scorers from last year’s NCAA Tournament team, but Kelsey believed his team would shoot the ball better than it did tonight, especially from the perimeter where the Eagles were 4-of-16.

“They did a good job taking away our 3-point field goals,” Kelsey said. “The adjustments they made at halftime, they really put us in mud on offense. I think it came down to that physical challenge and we didn’t meet that.”