By Ryan Keith 21

Winning is the bottom line for SIUC men’s basketball forward Derrick Tilmon. When the Salukis lose, a solid individual and team effort against top competition means nothing to the 6-foot-7 sophomore.

Tilmon scored 10 points and shut down the University of Miami’s Tim James for much of Friday’s game at SIU Arena, but his effort was not enough.

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Miami overcame a one-point halftime deficit by shooting 73 percent from the field in the second half for a 73-61 win over the Salukis in front of 3,826 people.

It doesn’t feel too good when we don’t get the win, Tilmon said. No matter how much I work down there, we’ve still got to win basketball games. That’s what we’ve got to focus on next week.

The loss marked the second time in coach Rich Herrin’s 13 years at SIUC that the Salukis have lost their season opener. Miami earned its first win of the season.

The Salukis took their role as underdog seriously against the Big East Conference-member Hurricanes Friday. SIUC overcame a sloppy start to cut into an 11-point Miami lead and take a 32-31 lead into the locker room at the end of the first half.

The Salukis out-rebounded the Hurricanes 22-16 and forced a young Miami squad into committing 12 turnovers in the first half. Both teams shot 37 percent from the floor.

You have to give SIU and Coach Herrin a lot of credit for having their team very well-prepared, Miami coach Leonard Hamilton said. We were so hyper in the first half that we busted every offensive set that we had. We were trying to score so quickly and so fast that we didn’t allow our offense to work for us.

The Hurricanes recovered quickly at halftime and reversed the momentum by making eight of their first nine shots and jumping out to a 53-40 lead on a 12-0 run. Miami held off several Saluki runs for the 12-point win.

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Despite the loss, Herrin thought his team showed that it has the talent to compete with every team on its schedule.

I thought we had a great effort out there, Herrin said. Miami’s a very good basketball team with size, strength and depth.

I have to be very pleased with our effort. You never want to get beat, but you’ve got to be concerned when you go out there. I think we proved we can play with good teams, and this is a good team.

Forward Monte Jenkins paced the Salukis in scoring with 22 points. Tilmon added 10, while forward Chris Thunell had eight and guard Shane Hawkins chipped in seven. Miami was led by guard Johnny Hemsley, who scored 16 points. James, a pre-season all-Big East selection, finished with 14 points after being held to six in the first half by Tilmon.

After Miami took a 13-point lead with 11 minutes and 54 seconds left in the second half, SIUC rallied to within 55-48 on a follow-up basket by Tilmon. After a Hurricanes’ time-out, James officially sealed the win with a thunderous running slam in the lane on the fast break over Saluki guard Lance Brown. SIUC never cut the lead to less than 11 points the rest of the way.

SIUC guard Jeremy Wright said the biggest difference in the second half was Miami’s size and strength that prevented easy shots. The Hurricanes out-rebounded SIUC 17-11 in the second half Friday.

Toward the end of the first half when we made the run, we had a lot of offensive rebounds, Wright said. In the second half, they did a better job of boxing us out. We didn’t really get to the offensive glass that much.

Miami is a big team all over, from point guard to the (center). But we’ve got a lot of height and depth on the inside. We’ve got to keep banging on the inside and hope that they (shots) will fall.

The Salukis now turn their attention back to exhibition play for one more night. SIUC battles Athletes in Action at SIU Arena Friday night in a rare exhibition game played after the start of the regular season.

Tilmon said SIUC must continue to play hard and concentrate on becoming strong mentally and physically to win basketball games.

We played pretty tough all of the way through the game, Tilmon said. But down at the end, they played a little tougher than us. That’s what we need to work on. I guess we just let up a little bit, and they took advantage of our mistakes.

SIUC takes on Athletes in Action in its final exhibition game of the season at 7:05 p.m. Friday at SIU Arena.