After that headline, let me diffuse the tension a little bit.

It’s highly unlikely that the 2024-25 SIU men’s basketball team will win Arch Madness. I’m not wearing rose-colored glasses here; I’ve watched the games. This team simply doesn’t project as a conference champion, which isn’t unexpected or even a bad thing in the first year of a head coach’s tenure.

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Vegas agrees that SIU is a long shot. The Dawgs are at +5000 odds to win the MVC tournament, and are given only a 47.1% chance by ESPN to advance out of the first round, though they are 1.5 point favorites.

Here’s what you can read that as: it’s not happening. But for the sake of optimism, here’s how it could, if everything goes right and is all put together at the same time.

Let’s start with the positives. There have been flashes of them being the team that first year head coach Scott Nagy envisioned, with the Dawgs pairing an efficient, high-enough-scoring offense based on solid ball movement while playing complementary defense. 

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Wins like their senior night victory over Illinois State,. their demolition of the University of Northern Iowa and the first 25-30 minutes of the Drake game have shown that though inconsistent, this Saluki team can beat or at least play with a quality opponent.

Then there have been games that they should have won, like their losses to Indiana State and Valparaiso and their first to Belmont, when their poor defense was too much to overcome despite relatively good offense. Or games like both of their matchups with Murray State, in which they seemingly couldn’t buy a shot. 

But the thought remains: the glimpses have been nothing short of tantalizing, and represent the reason that SIU can win Arch Madness. 

SIU had five games during Missouri Valley Conference play in which they shot over 50% from 3 point range. As typically happens when a team shoots that well from beyond the arc, they won all five, by an average margin of over 15 points. 

Opponents cannot allow Drew Steffe and Kennard Davis Jr., by far SIU’s two biggest 3-point threats, to get hot in a game. Davis Jr. has eight games in which he has made three or more 3 pointers and is shooting 36.9% from beyond the arc over the entire season.

Steffe has been a late-season revelation for the Salukis. After battling inconsistent playing time and a struggle to find his shot early in the season, Steffe has exploded in February. 

Since SIU’s Feb. 5 game against Evansville, in which Steffe went 2-5 from 3, he has shot almost 50% from 3 point range on nearly five attempts per game. 

In late February, assistant coach Steve Hawkins, the “defensive coordinator” for the Salukis, spoke about the importance of getting into a rhythm on the court and how it helps shooters; if this SIU team is able to get into rhythm, they are nearly unstoppable, as are most teams when the shots are falling and they’re in the zone. 

Speaking of Hawkins’ defense: this is the x-factor for the Salukis. Before a late February swoon, the Dawgs had an 11 game stretch going in which they gave up only 69.9 points per game while playing all four of the top teams in the MVC. Had they sustained that pace over the entire season, they would have ranked fifth in the MVC.

There’s a lot of “ifs” with these Salukis. “If” the sharp-shooting offense shows up. “If” the defense plays how it has shown it can. “If” they can do these things for four games, the Salukis may be able to pull off a Cinderella story and shock the rest of the MVC.

Do I think they’ll win the tournament? I don’t, no matter how much I’d love to see it. This team simply isn’t consistent enough to see it happening. But if they can string some performances together, there’s a chance, albeit a very, very small one, that they could pull off the statistically unlikely and punch their ticket to March Madness.

Sports reporter Ryan Grieser can be reached at rgrieser@dailyegyptian.com. To stay up to date on all your southern Illinois news, be sure to follow The Daily Egyptian on Facebook.

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