What happened?

After an overtime victory in Carbondale, Illinois last November in the ESPN College Hoops Tip-Off Classic, the Southern Illinois University Salukis returned the trip to Boston on Northeastern’s homecoming weekend. In another closely contested game, Northeastern used its size to out-muscle a physical Southern Illinois team. The size was closer to that of the University of Massachusetts, but the talent level and experience weren’t as high.

Kauri Black got both himself and the team started with a big dunk less than a minute into action, and the Huskies got going with a 6-2 run to start the game. Southern Illinois fought back and quickly tied the game, but didn’t take their first lead until Diamond Taylor’s 3-pointer just over 7 minutes into the game. Chris Lowery’s team would go on a 7-0 run that led them to their largest lead of the game, a 6-point advantage, just about halfway through the opening period.

The next two-plus minutes saw the teams trade turnovers and fouls until a putback dunk by Reggie Spencer, a Kauri Black steal that led him to a slam of his own, and another dunk by Spencer came back-to-back-to-back over the course of two minutes to spark Northeastern’s 8-0 run. After a layup and three free throws from SIU’s Kourtney Goff, Quincy Ford his his first career three-pointer. At the break, NU was hanging onto just a three point advantage, 31-28.

Black once again came out strong in the second half, starting things up with a jumper before Mamadou Seck nailed a pair from the charity stripe. Lee, Seck, and Kashief Edwards would trade baskets, and Justin Bocot got all four of his points for the game within a 20-second stretch on a couple of free throws and a layup. The Huskies followed with a 9-2 run, including 5 points from Jon Lee, Joel Smith’s first points of the game on a jumper, and a Kauri Black lay-in.

Smith’s triple gave Northeastern an eight point lead with 11:23 on the clock, but the Salukis would chip away and eventually tie the game up at 49 less than three minutes later. After the tie, eight of Northeastern’s next ten points would come at the line with Jon Lee making the only layup in that time. Seck took his fourth foul with 6:51 left, and immediately took a seat for the next two minutes. Once he got back on the court, Bill Coen sent his team after Seck and he was disqualified with his fifth foul just 33 seconds after his return – and with 4:07 remaining in the contest. His jumper just before he was taken out for good would be the last field goal scored by SIU, with six of the team’s final eight points coming at the line after they tied it up.

With less than two and a half minutes to go, Jon Lee committed a foul that sent Dantiel Daniels to the line where he brought SIU within three. However, those would be the last points of the game for the Salukis while Lee and Spencer would each add a pair of free throws to extend the lead to seven. After losses to Ohio Dominican (D-II) and St. Louis, this marks the first time Southern Illinois has started the season 0-3 since 1963.

More on the game… Player of the Game:

For Northeastern, it’s hard to decide between Jon Lee and Kauri Black – so I’ll give them both Co-Player of the Game honors.

Lee was the clear offensive leader, pouring in 24 points on 8/13 shooting, including 3/5 from long distance plus 5/6 from the free throw line. His 2 assists don’t jump out of the box score, but he did help create scoring opportunities even when he wasn’t the one shooting. The co-captain showed tremendous leadership on the floor. With Joel Smith not adding much to the scoreboard for the Huskies (5 points on 2/9 shooting), Lee has shown his ability to take control of games.

Kauri Black continued his impressive start to the season, playing suffocating defense which caused a number of turnovers and also had some exciting offensive plays. He was aggressive in getting after loose balls and rebounds. All three steals he was credited with came in a 90-second span during the first half, the last of which he ended up slamming home with one of his three dunks on the afternoon. After the game, he talked about his vast improvement from last season to this year, saying “I’m just more healthy, I’m just giving better effort and better confidence. I did a lot of change mentally over the summer.”

For the Salukis, Mamadou Seck (17 points) came out and immediately showed his leadership and experience on a very young team. When the Northeastern defense got to him, Diamond Taylor was able to contribute offensively. Freshman Treg Setty also had a strong defensive presence.

The Takeaway:

Through three games, the depth of this year’s team has proven very valuable. While Reggie Spencer may be putting up the best numbers out of the three new big men, both Kashief Edwards and Quincy Ford have played well to start their Northeastern careers. By watching Spencer and Ford, one wouldn’t know that they’re now just three games into their collegiate careers. Their ‘freshman mistakes’ have been minimal. Edwards has quietly contributed, playing solid defense while posting a few points here and there.

Ryan Pierson continues his struggles, but he hasn’t really cost the team much. In 11 minutes on Saturday, he grabbed a pair of rebounds and committed a foul, missing his only field goal and his only free throw. Unlike the other big men, he doesn’t seem to have a strong sense of his role. While it’s possible that he still hasn’t adjusted to coming off the bench, that doesn’t seem to be the case as we were able to see the team practice during the week and he didn’t look much better there.

Bill Coen’s management of playing time between all of his players has enabled the team to play a full 40 minutes in each game without being visibly exhausted. He finally has a roster full of players that are talented enough to give significant minutes to a variety of players, so he doesn’t have to rely on just 6 or 7 guys for an entire game. Though Demetrius Pollard only saw limited time against Massachusetts and the trio of Alex Bates, Chris Avenant and Devin Figueroa haven’t gotten off the bench yet, there has been a comfortable balance between everybody else.

Kauri Black committed just three fouls, and while two of them weren’t very good fouls (one on the perimeter, one before SIU even got the ball across midcourt after taking possession) it’s still an improvement from someone who is consistently in foul trouble. He had been disqualified against Boston University in the season opener, and also committed three fouls at UMass. It seems like he’s finally starting to figure out how to be more aggressive in the paint without getting into foul trouble. Many of the fouls he’s had in the past have come outside, which hasn’t been the case for the majority of his whistles this season.

Against a Southern Illinois team that is on a hard downfall from its success in the early part of the century, Northeastern wasn’t really out-played but they didn’t go out and dominate a young team that has just two eligible players back from last year’s team that the Huskies beat on the road. They were fortunate that the Salukis struggled to score, converting 16 NU turnovers into 15 points, shooting a lowly 32.1% (17/53) from the field including 22.2% (6/27) in the second half. Had SIU been able to find the inside of the net with their shots, Northeastern would have been in trouble. After allowing their opponents to start the game with seven makes in their first nine tries, Jon Lee and co. started forcing harder shots. However, despite the shooting problems, Southern Illinois was very much in the game with chances to take the lead down the stretch.

Quotes of Note:

Jon Lee, on the play of freshmen Reggie Spencer and Quincy Ford: “The young guys are learning – a lot. I’d say better than me or better than our class [Lee, Smith, Black, Bigby, Marshavelski, Avenant] when we came in…They’ve really shown me that I can trust them, so I don’t have a problem passing it to Reggie in the post or [Quincy] for the three…I’ve got a lot of faith in the young guys.”

Hear all of the post-game comments from head coach Bill Coen, co-captain Jon Lee, and junior Kauri Black:

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Southern Illinois head coach Chris Lowery on his team’s 0-3 start: “That’s not acceptable and not where we want to be, but we have made progress forward and made a move forward with this game.” Later in the presser, he also added “We understand what we have. It’d be different if this was a veteran team. Then you’d be ready to jump off a cliff…They were more than scared today.”

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Andy Towne Audio, Basketball, Press Pass Southern Illinois