With three minutes remaining in the first half Tyrone Green hit a layup to put the Salukis up 26-18 and things were looking good for the Dawgs. Then the Saluki road team of old showed up in Peoria. Southern didn't score again in the first half. Over the next 7 minutes they turned an 8 point lead into a 5 point disadvantage.
The Salukis have struggled on the road all season and this game was no different... as the Salukis... wait... what?... This game was different ... as the Salukis wore down a short-handed Bradley team and got whatever they wanted offensively down the stretch.
Bryan Mullins turned the tide when he hit Matt Shaw for a layup that cut the lead to 3 and then the rest of the crew got involved. Wes Clemmons stepped it up big time, scoring 7 points in the next 3 minutes and capped off the run by taking a pass from Mullins and dropping in a layup to put Southern on top 40-37.
Once the Dawgs got their groove back there was never any doubt that they would close out the victory. As Lowery said in the postgame (95.1FM), Floorburn U is back. The Saluki 'D' was able to contain Jeremy Crouch in the second half and while Crouch finished with 21 points, it took him 21 shots to get there.
The 'big 3' combo of Mullins, Shaw, and Falker came up huge, but also give credit to Joshua Bone. Bone seems to have broken out of his shooting slump and he looked confident, hitting 3 of 5 from the field, to chip in 10 points off the bench. Southern needs the 'big 3' to play well every night, but when they get good contributions from a fourth player they are really tough to beat.
That's 5 wins in a row for the Dawgs and more importantly 2 of those wins came away from SIU Arena. Even though Bradley was short-handed, the game still counts the same in the standings and now the Salukis have their sights set on second place in the Valley.
