DE Assistant Sports Editor

It’s official for the first time since 1986, the SIUC men’s basketball team will not see any post-season action.

Last night in Terre Haute, Indiana State University handed SIUC its 12th loss of the season with a 94-80 thrashing, dashing all hopes for a trip to this year’s Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.

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Saluki coach Rich Herrin said the opportunity to make the tournament was always there but, the Salukis simply fell short of that goal.

I realized this was probably going to happen I can count pretty good, Herrin said. I knew we had an opportunity all along. We’ll just continue playing and play with what we’ve got. This group has worked as hard as any other group has worked. We just haven’t had the success.

Paced by guard Troy Hudson, SIUC took command of the game in the first half, stunning the Sycamores with a 21-15 advantage on the glass and a barrage of three pointers from Hudson.

Hudson, who had 39 of SIUC’s total points on the evening, nailed seven treys in the first half and added three more in the second to set an individual single season record for most three-point field goals with 88.

With Hudson leading the way, all seemed well for SIUC in the first half, who led 48-39 at the break.

However, that lead quickly evaporated early in the second half when the Salukis went nearly 10-minutes without a bucket and were outscored 58-32.

Herrin said it was ISU’s quick second-half start that hurt the Salukis the most.

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We kind of set the tempo of the game to start the second half, Herrin said. The first five minutes of the second half is probably the most important part of any ball game.

We let them come down and get two threes and that’s probably the difference in the game right there.

Adding injury to insult, ISU’s offense scored a season-high against SIUC’s defense.

We didn’t defend them very hard, Herrin said. When you let them have 55 points, you don’t have much of a chance of winning the basketball game. I’d say our effort on defense wasn’t there as much as we would have liked to have it.

Despite not making this year’s tournament, Herrin said he is proud of this season’s effort on behalf of his squad.

If we could’ve beaten Northern Iowa, Tulsa Creighton and Drake, we would have had a very good season but, we didn’t win those four games so it has not been a good season, Herrin said. This has been a fun time as far as going to practice. Our guys work hard every day.

They want to win, we just didn’t have enough to get the job done.

Although it’s all academic from here on out, SIUC returns to action Saturday at Evansville, before returning home for its last regular season game against Bradley Monday.