Beat on the Road

Lots of things went wrong for Southern tonight.

The offense never got into a flow, committing 20 turnovers. When SIU did get a good look their shots did not fall. The final possession for SIU told the story of the game. With the game tied at 46-46 and just under one minute remaining, the Salukis failed to get an entry pass and had to settle for a long range three pointer from JT. The shot did not fall leaving SIU fans to wonder why we did not take an earlier shot that would have given us a 2 for 1 opportunity.

Same old story from the bench- Wesley Clemmons and Tony Boyle combined for ZERO points in this game. The lack of contribution from the bench players is unacceptable for a conference championship caliber team.

SIU barley got to foul line and when they got there they did not capitalize only hitting 4 of 9 from the stripe.

Zone defense confused the dawgs once again tonight. Coach Lowerys troops only play man to man- even in practice. When game day rolls around this team has had trouble beating a good zone defense (see: Indiana). Guess who plays really good zone defense… Missouri State.

You can give Bradley a little credit, they hung around in this game but they did not do anything exceptional to win. The bottom line is SIU just laid an egg tonight, something that you can’t do on the road in this conference. Better days are ahead for the Salukis but I would not want to be on that bus heading down I-57 to Carbondale tonight.

We’ll be back with more tomorrow including a full preview of Saturdays game versus Conference leader Missouri State.