Saturday, February 6, 2015 7:00 p.m.
SIU Arena, Carbondale, Ill.

Against Loyola to open the conference season on Dec. 30, the Salukis shot 50% from the field and from three point land while holding Loyola under 40% en route to a convincing 72-62 win. Anthony Beane had 26 points to lead all scorers, and Milton Doyle went on a furious late scoring run to finish with 17 for the Ramblers, but it was too little, too late. Montel James had just returned to the starting lineup after missing several games and coming off the bench.

Through January 28, the Salukis were having an unexpectedly excellent season: 18-3 overall, 7-1 in the MVC, and leading Evansville late in the game at home for a chance to lock up sole possession of 2nd place in the league. But a last second fade away three-pointer by Balentine sent the game to overtime, where the Salukis lost to begin a three game losing streak. They lost their next game at Northern Iowa scoring a season-low 58 points, and in their last game they set a new season low with 55 points at Wichita State.

SIU still has the same starting five they trotted out against Loyola five weeks ago: the MVC’s second-leading scorer Anthony Beane (19.6 ppg), juco point guard Mike Rodriguez (9.0 points, 3.3 assists per game), three point specialist Tyler Smithpeters (46% three point shooting) and forwards Bola Olaniyan (8.6 rebounds, 7.6 points per game) and Sean O’Brien (12.1 points, 6.0 boards per game). Guard Leo Vincent (8.8 points) is the top scorer off the bench, and gets time along with guard Armon Fletcher, freshman forward Austin Weiher, and forward Ibby Djimde. Rarely used 7-footer Deng Leek made a huge impact in the December game at Loyola with four points and four blocks in eight minutes.

The few opponents who have beaten SIU this year (UTEP, Wichita State, Evansville, Northern Iowa, and SIU-Edwardsville) have mostly done it with applying fierce defense to the Salukis and taking care of the ball. When SIU shoots 41% or lower from the field, they’re 1-4. The exception to this formula was SIUE, who shot 65.5% on three pointers and went to the free throw line 26 times to eke out a 2-point win. Keeping turnovers to a minimum is also a key against SIU, a team that uses a steals, turnover, and rebounding advantage over opponents to spark their offense. SIU has taken almost 100 more shots from the field than their opponents, and hits them at a higher percentage-- many times thanks to high-percentage breakaway layups from steals.

Loyola game notes: http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/loy ... 205aaa.pdf

SIU game notes: http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/loy ... a_silu.pdf

TV/Streaming video: ESPN3

Vegas odds: Salukis by 7.5

26-22 ! late in half--Not bad at all. We are boarding well--Must keep it up.

Pretty good first half. Ingram and Turk started things off early for us. Montel started to get going later. Hope our shots keep falling.

good first half, but look at this (obviously worst case!).

http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_234_Men.html

What happened to Ben's face?

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Hopefully we can keep this momentum up in the 4th quarter...

avoiding Thursday in the Valley seems very similar to "getting a home game" in the old Horizon League first round! Hope it happens! Keep it up Ramblers!

Ramblers playing hard! I'm confident that we can also pull wins agains Bradley, Missouri State and Drake. We would likely still play on Thursday, but it would give this team some much needed confidence. We could have easily been 6-5 in conference at this point in the season.

Really playing for the CBI/CIT. WSU is winning the tourney and the NIT and Vegas 16 are already out.

If we lose this one, it's because we will have a complete melt down... I honestly think we are downright better than these guys. It's does not just look like an off night for them -- we have been outplaying them all game.