The Southern Illinois men’s basketball team (7-6, 1-6 MVC) dropped their sixth-straight conference game since improving to a 7-0 record in late December, this time in a 74-62 loss to Northern Iowa (5-10, 3-6 MVC).

Freshman guard Dalton Banks spoke about losing the second half lead and what the team needs to improve on. 

“We definitely felt like we came out a little flat in the second half, we needed someone to step up and we just didn’t have that today,” Banks said.

Head coach Bryan Mullins gave credit to Northern Iowa after the game. 

“I give credit to Northern Iowa, they played great in the second half,” Mullins said.

The Panthers outrebounded the Salukis 44-30 and Banks said the team needs to do a better job of competing to improve their rebounding. 

Mullins said the team needs to play well for 40 consecutive minutes. 

The Panthers committed 21 fouls in the game and Mullins said he thought the Salukis’ big men did a good job drawing fouls throughout the game. 

The Salukis shot just 6-21 from 3-point arc in the game and Mullins said the team’s confidence is affecting their shooting from 3-point range. 

“We’ve got to shoot with confidence, we had some good looks in the second half, Ben [Harvey] had some, Steven [Verplancken] had some good looks,” Mullins said.

Top scorers for Southern were sophomore guard Ben Harvey with 11 points followed by freshman center Kyler Filewich and Banks who both added ten. 

The Panthers were led by sophomore forward Noah Carter with 21 points, freshman guard Bowen Born also added 17 for Northern Iowa. 

The first half was back and forth with both teams leading multiple times in the half. 

SIU led 30-23 with a few minutes left before the half with help from two late threes from Harvey and sophomore guard Trent Brown. 

Shortly after, the Panthers scored four points in a row to cut their halftime deficit to only three. 

The Salukis shot only two-for-nine from the free throw line in the first half. 

Southern didn’t score in the final two minutes of the first half and a 10-2 run early in the second half from UNI gave them a seven point lead at 47-40. 

Once the Panthers took the lead at 42-40 they never gave it back. The Salukis tried to get back in the game but weren’t able to really cut into the lead as the Panthers got a 74-62 win. 

The Salukis will play Northern Iowa again tomorrow, Jan.31, at 5 p.m in the Banterra Center.

Sports reporter Ryan Scott can be reached at [email protected] or on twitter @RyanscottDE. 

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