Women's Basketball 2022-23

Halftime.

Dawgs 60

Cougars 29

Covering the spread at halftime!

After 3

Southern Illinois Home Team 88

Chicago-Land Visitors 45

7:07 left in the 4th we've hit 100!!!

SIU 100

CSU 50

Final 

Southern 115

Chicago State 57

Jones leads the way with 29. Holmes with 19. Taylor with 15. Hughes with 13. Randle with 10.

That's is the most points ever in a game by women's basketball!!!

https://twitter.com/SIU_WBasketball/status/1599854459542474752?s=20&t=nJlwiXkDIwmP5moL3QO4VA

SIU (2-5) vs Tennessee State (4-3)

Wed Dec 7^th 11am Banterra Center

TV/Streaming ESPN+ Mike Trude and Dominic Hoscher

Radio Magic 95.1/Saluki Sports Network - Trey Reamer

Prediction: SIU -23 (warrennolan.com)

The Game:

Coming off of our record setting 115-57 win over Chicago State we get the Tennessee State Tigers of the OVC in our last home non-conference game. We only have one more non-conference game two weeks from now in St. Louis against SLU.

The early start to this one for SIU's Field Trip Day. The last time we held this special (In 2019-2020 season) around THREE THOUSAND middle schoolers were in attendance. If you don't want to deal with a shit-load of little to no supervised sugar hopped up kids - don't come. This will be the only time I *ever* say something like that about an SIU athletics event.  

This is the sixth all-time meeting between the two schools. Southern holds a 4-1 record in the series that dates back to 2001. It’s been a minute since the last time we played the Tigers – December of 2015 an SIU win.

TSU is coached by Ty Evans in his third year at the helm. Evans came to TSU from Auburn and has had some other big name program stops including: Georgetown, Alabama and SLU.

The Lady Tigers:

The Tigers don’t quite match our overall height as they start 5-6, 5-7, 6-0, 5-9 and 5-8.

TSU is lead by  5-7 Sophomore Guard Gia Adams and her 17.4ppg/2.3 assists. Their next leading scorer is 5-6 Graduate Student Guard Erica Haynes-Overton and her 13.7ppg. The Tigers Top post player is 6-2 Senior Sierra McCollough who averages 5.6ppg and 8.4 rebounds per game.

The Tigers haven’t played much in the way of competition. Their only D-1 wins have been against 236 NET Omaha and 171 NET Lipscomb. Their other two wins were against D-2 or lower schools. Their three losses were to Q3 Chattanooga and Butler and a Q4 loss to UM-KC.

Tale Of The Tape

                              TSU        SIU

PPG                      67.6       75          

Pts Allowed         70.1       79

FG%                      .375       .393

FG% OPP             .437       .447

3pt%                     .214       .336

3pt % OPP           .273       .416

Rebounds            34.7       40

Assists                  9.0         15

Turnovers           18           15          

Steals                   12           10

Ashley Jones was The Valley Newcomer of the Week after going for 29 points against CSU.

Even though the CSU game was a blowout, we looked substantially better on both sides of the ball. Southern has some serious firepower on offense and if they stay home on defense and play as a team, we can be pretty solid. Most of our games will be high scoring affairs on both sides of the floor. On paper this game looks a lot like the Chicago State game. Lets see if we can stay focused and bring home another double-digit win.

GO DAWGS!!!

Wow! Its amazing how a half full crowd of little kids can make more noise than a crowd of adults. Lol!

I'm a season ticket holder and staff made me move to the upper bowl to accommodate a group of kids. 

Nice. 

To amend this....

I can see why they moved me to keep a group together. The staff member did apologize and said they should have warned season ticket holders and blocked off a section for them. 

After the first. 

Southern Illinois middle schoolers....

3000+

SIU Women's Basketball 26

TSU Tigers 14

Some miscommunication at times probably due to the inordinate amount of noise. 

Hey there we're back up. Foul trouble has kinda limited us a bit. 

4:36 to play.

SIU 91

TSU 64

We've got 5 in double figures

100 pts for the second straight game. Q Love has a double double 11pts 12 dimes!

Final

SIU 100

TSU 72

Six in double figures. New record of 33 assists. Three with 16 pts. Jones, Taylor and Randle. Mason with 15 and Nard and Love with 11. 

63% shooting 40 to 28 rebounding advantage. A bit of negative...too many turnovers and fouls. 

But another W and that's all that matters!

I think they are improving - playing together much better. Don't play again until at (3 - 9) SLU 12/21.

That play-by-play announcer for the women on ESPN+ talks Waaaaaayyyyyy too much. Makes my ears bleed. Makes Howard Cosell seem like the quiet type.

Much rather hear Mike Trude.

SIU (3-5) at Saint Louis (3-11)

Wednesday 12/21 - 4pm Chaifetz Arena

TV Streaming ESPN+

Radio & Streaming Saluki Sports Network/Magic95.1 (Trey Reamer)

Prediction: SIU -4

Series History:

This series with the Billikens dates to 1970 with 22 games played. According to the SIU Media Guide the Salukis hold a 13-9 edge with the last win coming last time we played in 2019 at Banterra 61-53.

The Billikens This Season:

The Billikens are coached by Rebecca Tillet in her first year at the helm. Coach Tillet came from Longwood University where she came off of the Lancer’s first ever NCAA Tournament appearance. They won a First Four game as a 16 seed then lost to 1 seed NC State. To say the Billikens season and the Coach Tillet tenure has gotten off to a rough start is a bit of an understatement. They currently sit at 3-11 after their last game - an 83-71 loss to common opponent Memphis. Including our game, The Bills will have played half of The Valley in non-conference beating ISU-Red, losing to ISU-Blue, UNI, MSU and Belmont.

Tale Of The Tape:

                            SLU        SIU

PPG                      67.1       78.4      

Pts Allowed            72.9       78.1

FG%                     .404       .421

FG% OPP              .410       .442

3pt%                   .262       .346

3pt % OPP           .367       .414

Rebounds             37.1       39.9

Assists                 13.4       17.9

Turnovers             19          16.1      

Steals                  9.6        10.6

Blocks                  5.1         3.9

Offensive Rtg      185th       92nd

                           88.8       97.7

Defensive Rtg     271st        265th

                           97.3       96.9

Pace of Play        50th           7th

                           75.5       80.2

Eff FG%                185        150

                           .450       .464

The Billikens Dramatis Personae –

The Billikens are lead in scoring by 5-11 Sr Guard Kyla McMakin and her 17.2ppg. She only shoots 33% from the field and 29% from three. They have height to match ours as their second leading scorer is 6-5 Sr Center Brooke Flowers, she averages 10.6ppg and a team high 7 rebounds. 6-2 Fr Forward Mia Nicastro just came off of winning A-10 Newcomer Of The Week honors with a 13 point 4 rebound effort against Memphis. She averages 4.3 points a game. It looks like they go ten deep, but only eight see regular floor time. Four of their regular starters play heavy minutes. Three of them play 31+ minutes a game. In contrast, we only have two starters playing over 25 minutes a game. The most minutes logged is Q Love at 234 minutes and 29.3 per game. They have FOUR players that have logged over 400 minutes in 14 games. Other than their two leading scorers, they have no other players that are close to averaging in double figures. Southern only has two double digit scorers (Jones & Taylor) as well but has four others close to double figure scoring.

Saluki Outlook:

After dismantling our last two opponents we look to keep the train rolling against SLU. We have two of the top 30 scoring games in the country. Our 115 point game is tied for fourth in Division 1. And our scoring average of 78.4 is good for 35^th in D-1 and that’s with a 38 point game!

We’ve cut down on the reckless shots and have been sharing the ball much better and more effectively. Turnovers are a bit of an issue, but that comes with our up-tempo style of play that is seventh in the nation in pace of play. IF we can keep up our transition offense, we’re in pretty good shape. We've cut down on three's and the bulk of our scoring is in the paint. I have some concerns about us having to play a half-court slugfest. We’re getting better and more in synch. Graduate Ashley Jones is the star of this team. It looks like Love is getting back into her groove and is still one of the best on-ball defenders I’ve seen. My next favorite player is the freshman, Jaidynn Mason. She makes the usual freshman mistakes but has shown quite a bit of flashes of a playmaker and top-shelf defender. We should be getting back a few players that have been injured. Prochaska coming out of concussion protocol and Adrianna Katcher from a foot injury. Don’t know what USC transfer Shemera Williams and Paige Clubb have been sidelined with.

My biggest concern about this game is the fourteen-day layoff since our last outing. If we knock off the rust and play like we have in our last few games, I think we can take this game.  Then comes the regular grind of The Valley. Up first is New Year’s weekend at the southern Indiana’s (Evansville and ISU-Blue.)

GO DAWGS!!!

*It’s been announced that before our first conference home game (Bradley, January 5^th) we will have a banner dropping ceremony for last year’s conference championship and the WNIT appearance.