SIU men’s basketball extends win streak with win against Mount St. Mary’s
SIU senior guard Mike Rodriguez jumps for a shot during the first half of the Saluki’s matchup against Mount St. Mary’s University on Monday, Nov. 21, 2016, at SIU Arena. (Athena Chrysanthou | @Chrysant1Athena)
November 21, 2016
It wasn’t the prettiest performance ever, but SIU men’s basketball got the job done Monday night.
The Salukis outscored Mount St. Mary’s by 11 in the second half to beat the Mountaineers, 73-63.
SIU sophomore guard Armon Fletcher scored a career-high 19 points to lead the Salukis.
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“I saw Leo [Vincent] wasn’t hitting shots like he normally does … so I just wanted to step up and play my role,” he said.
Vincent had one of his worst games as a Saluki, hitting only two of his seven shots while mostly confined to the bench with foul trouble. He wasn’t the only big scorer to struggle to put the ball in the basket Monday.
Things did not come easy for the Salukis as a team at the start, and the shortest player in Division I basketball stood tall early against SIU.
Junior guard Junior Robinson, standing at 5-foot-5, scored the Mountaineers’ first nine points with three 3-pointers.
“I know you guys think we’re crazy, but the scouting report on [Robinson] was ‘He’s not a shooter, he’s a driver. He never shoots threes,'” Hinson said. “So he makes his first two and Leo looks at me like I’m the biggest idiot on the face of the earth.”
He finished with a team-high 18 points.
The entire Mount St. Mary’s team decided to shoot any shot it saw in the first half, shooting 16 3-pointers — many far beyond the 3-point line — and making seven.
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Mount St. Mary’s actually shot better from outside the arc than inside it in the first half, hitting 43.8 percent of its 3-pointers and 42.8 percent of its two-point shots.
The lead changed hands eight times in the first 20 minutes with neither team holding a lead larger than seven points.
SIU was able to stay close in the first half — and pull away late — thanks to its strong rebounding gap, grabbing 45 boards to MSM’s 20.
“Our biggest goal tonight was to rebound and defend,” Hinson said. “This is the best we’ve defended and it’s the best we’ve rebounded all season.”
The Salukis would’ve likely won by more if it were not for their carefree nature with the basketball, committing 17 turnovers.
Those turnovers would send SIU into halftime with a one-point deficit at 36-35.
“I was very upset — that’s the most I’ve been upset at halftime,” the Saluki coach said. “I went after them and they responded.”
Despite a poor shooting night, senior forward Sean O’Brien contributed in other ways, mostly in the second half.
He grabbed 12 second-half rebounds and had four assists. O’Brien’s career-high 18 total rebounds are tied for the 21st-most in single-game program history.
He was an assist away from recording a double-double without points, his second straight nine-assist game.
“That’s incredible and that’s from the hybrid spot,” Hinson said after the game. “He dominated the game and he only had six points. You talk about unselfish basketball, when you dominate a game and only score six points, you know you’re doing something right.”
The Saluki lead lingered around six points for most of the second half before 5-0 and 7-2 runs under six minutes to go put the game out of reach.
Junior forward Thik Bol recorded his second double-double of the season with 16 points — eight in the final four minutes — and 12 rebounds. He also recorded six blocks.
“What we don’t see in the stat sheet is how many shots he altered,” Hinson said of Bol. “I bet he altered five shots, so that’s almost like 11 blocks. When you go 16 and 12 with six blocks, I don’t care who you’re playing, that’s pretty special.”
SIU will try to move its winning streak to four when it travels to Minneapolis for a game at 7 p.m. Friday to take on Minnesota.
Sports editor Sean Carley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @SCarleyDE.
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