Winners of five of their last six games, including a comeback win over Valparaiso earlier in the week, the Salukis came home with the mission of upsetting a 19-2 Drake squad. The wheels started to fall off for the Salukis around the eight minute mark in the second half as the Bulldogs went on a 12-2 run over the next four minutes, pushing their lead into double digits, putting SIU well out of reach with a final score of 75-65.
The Dawgs jumped out to an early lead, but a 9-0 run flipped the court back in favor of the Bulldogs. Drake was able to stretch their lead to as high as seven in the first half on 42% shooting from the floor and 40% from beyond the arc.
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Before the end of the half, SIU was able to pull it back to a one point game behind Ali Dibba’s 10 points and holding the Bulldogs to eight points in the last 10 minutes of the half.
Out of the break, the two teams started to match each other, with neither team leading by more than three for the first 10 minutes of the half.
“We had a simple game plan and in the second half, we just didn’t execute.” SIU head coach Scott Nagy said.
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On the offensive side of the ball, the Salukis were led by Kennard Davis Jr. and Dibba. The pair dropped 22 and 20 points respectively and Davis made all four of the Saluki triples in the game.
As a team, the Dawgs shot 14 for 21 from the field in the second half, but it still wasn’t enough due to their poor defensive showing.
“You lose by 10 points in the second half while shooting 60%, that’s how bad we were defensively.” Nagy said.
Defensively, SIU couldn’t contain Drake’s Bennett Stirtz. The junior finished the afternoon with 30 points on 11 for 17 shooting, including three threes, and five assists in 40 minutes on the court. The Bulldogs also got a lot of production from Tavion Banks off the bench, with 21 points and five rebounds.
The Salukis were shooting themselves in the foot all afternoon, with 16 turnovers by the time of the final buzzer. Drake took advantage of the mistakes and scored 20 of their points off of turnovers.
“They’re killing us. We’ve had two games in a row where all we do is turn it over,” Nagy said.
The Salukis moved to 10-13 on the season with the loss and 5-7 in Missouri Valley play. SIU will be back in action on Wednesday, Feb. 5 with a road game at Evansville.
Sports Reporter Nick Pfannkuche can be reached at [email protected]. To stay up to date on all your southern Illinois news, be sure to follow The Daily Egyptian on Facebook.
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