The Jays begin a two-game road trip to Carbondale and Evansville on Friday, and if you believe in omens, this is a bad one: the windshield on the team plane had a crack, delaying their departure by two hours on Thursday while another plane could be secured. Greg McDermott broke this news on Twitter, writing “Cracked windshield on charter flight. 2 hour wait for another airplane. Not a great start to our travel weekend!” Bad omen? Perhaps. But I’d argue that anything that reduces the amount of time you have to spend in Carbondale is a good thing.
For seven straight trips — between 2002 and 2008, to be exact — the Jays came up empty-handed in Carbondale. Kyle Korver’s 29-5 team in 2003 couldn’t win there. Nate Funk and Anthony Tolliver never won there, despite four tries apiece. From the bombastic Bruce Weber, to the pompous Matt Painter, to the compulsive-complainer Chris Lowery, it was hard to tell what SIU coaches enjoyed more: holding an infuriating homecourt advantage over their partners in domination in the MVC, or rubbing salt in the Jays wounds.
That all ended in February of 2009, with a nationally-televised game colloquially referred to around these parts as The Valentine’s Day Massacre. Creighton exorcised the demons of that long losing streak with a 82-60 win that had Saluki fans scurrying for the exits early. Last year, the Jays once again won in Carbondale, an 83-78 overtime triumph in the final contest of the “old” SIU Arena before it was gutted and remodeled. A small measure of revenge in spoiling the finale of the old building, to be sure, but when you lose seven straight during a stretch of seasons where you dominated almost everyone else in the league, you take what you can get.
For the better part of a decade, there wasn’t a worse place to travel to coming off a tough loss — a trip to SIU Arena could turn one loss into a losing streak. Luckily, given the events of Tuesday night, this isn’t the SIU Arena of days gone by, and these aren’t the Salukis of days gone by.
Picked ninth in the MVC Preseason Poll — we had them slightly higher in our WBR Poll at seventh, but that’s still a play-in position so the difference is negligible at best — they’ve nonetheless started 2-1 in league play with wins over Northern Iowa and Bradley. This despite playing all three games without their best player, Gene Teague, who leads them in both scoring and rebounding. Teague sprained his ankle in practice on December 27 and hasn’t played since; while he could return for the game vs. the Jays, head coach Chris Lowery isn’t counting on it. As he told the media at his weekly press conference, “We’re kind of bringing him along slowly. If he can’t do everything, he can’t play. That’s the deal we’ve always had — if you can’t do everything in the practice before the game, you can’t play.”
Three years after their last NCAA Tournament trip, and coming off two losing seasons in a row in which the defense-first Salukis lost their identity, Lowery made a concerted effort to recruit the types of players they used to win with. “The toughness it took to be able to get on the floor for a loose ball won’t be an issue anymore,” Lowery told the Southern Illinoisan’s Todd Hefferman in November. “We watched over plays a lot the past two years. We watched people do tough things while we complained, and now it’s not that way.”
All six newcomers are defense-first players, and it shows in their play. Last year, the Salukis gave up over 67 points a game, their highest average in a decade. This year, they’re giving up less than 64 a game, they’re rebounding better, they’re forcing more turnovers, and they’re starting to regain their reputation as Floorburn U. They’re not there yet, and are not yet a contending team, but they’re more instantly recognizable as Southern Illinois than in the past two years — which is a good thing both for their program and for the Valley as a whole.
Carlton Fay, a 6’8″ senior, has been leading the way in Teague’s absence. He hit the game-winning shot at the buzzer against Northern Iowa over the weekend, and is averaging 11.1 points with 4.3 rebounds a game. He’s a physical dude and if the Jays come with the same interior defensive intensity (or lack thereof) as they did in the second half Tuesday, Fay could have a field day.
Ditto for junior-college transfer Mamadou Seck, who’s starting to come into his own. Since joining the starting lineup seven games ago, the 6’7″ forward has averaged 12.3 points and 8.1 rebounds, while shooting 54.5% from the field and 81.3% from the free throw line. Seck recorded three double-doubles in those seven games.
Another senior, Justin Bocot, is their leader in the backcourt, averaging 7 points a game. He’s procured 17 steals on the season, the best on the team, but his offensive production is down across the board. Its unclear whether that’s a result of expending more energy on defense, or bad luck, or something else entirely, but he’s worse in nearly every category you look at. He’s averaging two fewer points per game, while shooting just 34% from the floor after making nearly 45% of his shots a year ago. He’s making just 23% of his three-pointers, a huge drop-off from the 37% he connected on last year. And he’s making just 63% of his free-throws, the first time in his career he’s been below 70% in that category.
His backcourt mate, Kendal Brown-Surles, leads the team in assists with 32, but has already turned it over almost as often (34) as he did all of last season (39) despite playing nearly the same number of minutes off the bench. His assist-to-turnover ratio of 0.9 is not even the same league as Antoine Young and his stellar 2.2 ratio. The Jays, who don’t apply pressure in the backcourt, have not been great at forcing opponents to turn it over though, which could disguise Brown-Surles biggest weakness. Brown-Surles comes off the bench but often plays more minutes at point guard than the starter, because Lowery believes he performs better as a reserve. The numbers back him up: he’s averaged more points coming off the bench (8.7 ppg) than he has as a starter (2.6 ppg). And last Saturday versus Northern Iowa, he scored 14 points and made 4-of-7 shots from 3-point range while backing up Bocot and fellow senior John Freeman.
Without Gene Teague, a physical beast of a big man, the Jays can perhaps come out of Carbondale with a win by playing merely solid for 40 minutes. If he plays tomorrow night, the Jays will need Kenny Lawson and Gregory Echenique to bring their “A” games in order to do that, though. Anything less and Teague will make the layup drill that occurred in the second half against Missouri State seem tame by comparison.
About the Salukis: If the Salukis beat Creighton on Friday, they will be 3-1 in the Missouri Valley
Conference and match their best start since beginning the 2007 season with a 3-1 league mark; SIU advanced to the Sweet 16 that season … In the last two games, Carlton Fay has averaged 17.5 points while shooting .522 from the field. A three-year starter, Fay is the active scoring leader for SIU with 913 career points, and has played (108) and started (70) more games than any player on the roster … Through 14 games, eight different players have led the Salukis in scoring in a game. No player on the Southern Illinois roster averages more than 11.1 points per game, and the Salukis are using an 11-man rotation in which no player averages more than 26.0 minutes … Since Chris Lowery became head coach, the Salukis have held opponents under 60 points in a game an astounding 98 times in 212 games — 46 percent of the time … SIU has a +7.1 advantage in rebounding this season, which ranks second in the MVC, and in its seven wins, Southern is +11.1 on the boards … Gene Teague leads the conference with 7.6 rebounds per game, while Mamadou Seck adds 7.1 boards a night … Lowery has tried five different combinations of starting lineups this season, with the only players who have started every game being Carlton Fay and John Freeman … Perhaps not coincidentally, the Saluki bench is averaging 23.4 points and 16.1 rebounds per game … SIU is the only Valley team to have played three teams in the top 53 of the current RPI rankings — Purdue (11), Illinois (16) and New Mexico (53) — though they lost to all three.
One Big Paragraph with Lots O’Dots™: Since the 2002 MVC Tournament final, Creighton is 8-0 against SIU when scoring 70 points or more, but 1-10 when scoring less than 70 … After the trip to SIU Friday, the Jays quickly head to Evansville for a Sunday afternoon game; the Jays have won at both venues each of the previous two seasons … Creighton has played a two-game MVC road trip in early January every year since 1999-00, but the only time they swept both games came in during the 2002-03 and 2003-04 seasons; amazingly, both of those trips featured road wins over both Bradley and Illinois State … Antoine Young’s rise to the top of the point guard class in the MVC began with the game at SIU last year. On that night, Young made 8-of-9 free throws and scored a career-high 22 points; since then, he’s doubled his scoring, rebounding and assist numbers while shooting significantly better from the floor, three-point land and the line.
A WBR tip of the cap to Casey Harriman: Plagued by a pair of partially torn labrums and countless other maladies, senior forward Casey Harriman elected to have season-ending shoulder surgery on January 5th. Harriman made the decision on January 3rd, but was given once last chance to play by Greg McDermott late in Tuesday’s blowout loss. He checked into the game in the final minute, receiving standing ovations both when he checked in, then again 19 seconds later when he checked out. The only shame is that there weren’t more people there to salute him. Harriman was one of the toughest players of the Altman Era, a consummate blue-collar type who did whatever necessary to win, and took more charges than any player in recent memory.
Harriman played 13 minutes total in six games this season, finishing his final campaign with two points and two rebounds. For his career, Harriman started 16 of 104 games played and finishes with 336 points, 242 rebounds and — love this stat — 44 charges taken.
The Last Time They Played: Antoine Young had a then-career-high 22 points, including six of CU’s final eight points in overtime, as Creighton completed a season sweep of SIU on February 23, 2010. The win in Carbondale was their second straight.
Both teams came out red-hot to start the game, with Creighton taking a 20-16 lead at the first media timeout. The Jays would hit 10 of its first 15 field goal attempts, getting baskets from seven different men, though the Salukis hung tough and used a 20-4 run late in the first half to take a 40-36 lead at the break. After a nip-and-tuck second half, the Jays first tied it, then held the ball for a final shot on the last possession. Trying to get the potential game-winning shot, Young drove left, only to have his shot blocked out-of-bounds with 2.4 seconds left. Following a Bluejay timeout, Young would inbound the ball to Lawson, who had his fadeway jumper blocked by Fay as time expired, sending CU to overtime.
Creighton’s Lawson drained the opening basket of overtime, giving CU its first lead since the first half. After a second consecutive SIU turnover, Young drove and converted a three-point play. Lawson then took a charge on Teague with 3:39 to go, and Young would go to the stripe. He made the second to push CU’s lead to six, and the game was over for all intents and purposes.
The Series: Creighton owns a 47-36 all-time lead in the series against Southern Illinois, though the Salukis lead 22-16 in Carbondale. The Bluejays have, astonishingly, won the last five meetings and six of seven since an eight-game losing streak to Southern Illinois. Seventeen of the last 21 meetings have been decided by nine points or less, including both of Creighton’s wins last season.
Greg McDermott is 4-7 against Southern Illinois and 2-3 against Chris Lowery, while Lowery is 7-6 against Creighton all-time.
Gratuitous Linkage: The Hub is quickly becoming one of my favorite guilty-pleasure cable channels. In addition to showing the 1966 Batman with Adam West every night, they show G.I. Joe, Transformers, The Wonder Years and Family Ties. Now they’ve reunited the parents from the latter show on a new cartoon. I will not admit to watching this. But I will totally be watching this. Don’t judge me.
Out of Context Simpsons quote: “Bart, with $10,000 we’d be millionaires! We could buy all kinds of useful things like…love!” -Homer Simpson
This Date in Creighton Hoops History: On January 7, 2004, Sophomore guard Johnny Mathies made 1-of-2 free throws with 1.4 seconds left to lift Creighton to a 56-55 road win at Illinois State. The win elevated Creighton to an 11-0 start for the first time since 1942-43, becoming the second league school since 1923 to start 10-0 or better in consecutive seasons, joining Larry Bird’s 1977-78 and 1978-79 clubs at Indiana State. Creighton moved to 40-5 since the start of the 2002-03 season, and would break into the polls at #24 the following week.
It would also be the last game Tyler McKinney would play that season following an injury to his eye. The Jays would stumble down the stretch, winning just nine games the rest of the season.
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day: Carbondale is part of the “Little Egypt” geographic area in Illinois, which is why SIU’s mascot is the Saluki, an Egyptian dog. Given that knowledge, for a child of the ’80s, one song comes to my mind and I have to play the video now. You know I must.
You were tapping your foot along to it, I saw you! So don’t even try to deny you dug that. (OK, I didn’t really see you tapping your foot, that would be creepy for me to have those kind of super-spy capabilities. But don’t deny you were doing it. Because you totally were.)
The Bottom Line: I think the Salukis are going to be too much for the Jays on Friday. Carlton Fay, Mamadou Seck and Gene Teague — if he plays — will be more than Kenny Lawson and Gregory Echenique can handle inside, unless they play much better than they did Tuesday. Couple that with the newly-renovated SIU Arena being as intimidating for opposing teams as the old one was, despite its newness, and this smells like a loss to me.
SIU 68, Creighton 63