Saluki men’s basketball defeats Missouri State, falls to Drake in Arch Madness

Southern Illinois men’s basketball made a run into the semifinals of the Missouri Valley Conference tournament at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis this past weekend. The Salukis won their first game against Missouri State 54-51 on Friday before losing to Drake 65-62 on Saturday.

It marks the farthest the Salukis have gone into Arch Madness since 2018, and the first semifinals run under head coach Bryan Mullins.

The Salukis were led by Marcus Domask with 17 points and four assists, as well as Xavier Johnson, who shot 5-for-7 and swiped three steals against Missouri State Friday.

Another notable performance came at the hands of Troy D’Amico, who scored 10 points that included a three-pointer off a Johnson steal to give the Salukis a two-possession lead heading into the final media timeout.

“It’s March, so it’s obviously win or go home,” D’Amico said. “That was just a big moment. Got me fired up, got the team fired up.”

However, Southern would commit three straight turnovers in the closing minutes, allowing Missouri State to pull within one, 5251. Domask’s two free throws late put the game just out of reach, and kept the Dawgs in St. Louis for one more day.

While the game came down to the wire, it didn’t seem like it would at first. Missouri State led by as much as 13 with seven minutes left in the first half, but was held scoreless for the final 6:29 to allow the Salukis a chance to cut the lead to just five by halftime.

“We just came together that one timeout and said ‘We’ve got to go on a run right now,’” Domask said. “We didn’t want to be down 10 at the half. We went on that run, and then the talk in the locker room at halftime was, they played their best, we didn’t play that good, and now it’s our turn.”

That defensive effort to end the first half was replicated later when the Salukis held Missouri State scoreless for a seven-minute stretch capped off by D’Amico’s three-pointer with 2:20 left in the game. By then, the lead had permanently shifted in SIU’s favor.

“We were able to keep them in front, and have good physicality,” Mullins said.

Despite committing three turnovers in the closing minutes, the Salukis still dominated in the turnover battle with a 17-10 margin in their favor. It helped balance out a rebounding margin that went 34-29 in favor of Missouri State, including four extra offensive rebounds for the Bears.

“They’re a great offensive rebounding team, so we knew that was going to be a challenge for us,” Mullins said. “But we couldn’t lose the turnover battle and lose the offensive rebounding battle and give them 10-15 more shots than we got.”

Southern had less than 24 hours to prepare for its next opponent, the second-seeded Drake Bulldogs. Drake eliminated the Salukis from the 2022 Arch Madness tournament, and history repeated itself in the 2023 edition as the Bulldogs came away with a 65-52 win.

“I thought we played well in spurts, we just didn’t put together 40 minutes of good enough basketball to win at this level,” Mullins said. “But just in terms of our team’s fight, our resiliency throughout this whole year, I couldn’t have asked to be a coach for a better team that represents this program, this university the way they do.”

Lance Jones led the team in scoring on Saturday with 18 points. He opened the night with two threepointers to spark a 9-0 run for the Salukis to begin the game, and featured heavily in a 13-2 Saluki run to start the second half.

“I think we all came out with the right focus,” Jones said. “To try to win the first possession, or try to come out with a great mindset.”

However, Drake managed to counter both SIU runs with bursts of their own. Notably, a 26-4 run in the first half gave the Bulldogs a lead they would never relinquish.

A major battle during the game came between Drake’s 6’10 forward Darnell Brodie and SIU’s 6’8 Clarence Rupert. Brodie would finish with 10 points and 17 rebounds, while Rupert had nine points and four rebounds.

A major focus of the Drake offense involved screens from Brodie, which would help free up Drake’s guards or cause Rupert to switch and free up Brodie for a good look at the basket.

“Those guys do a great job of finding Brodie,” Mullins said. “Brodie’s a big target. He does a great job setting screens, rolling, and he gets a lot of his baskets off of drop downs and pocket passes from the guards.”

This became even more effective after Rupert picked up two fouls in the first three minutes of the game. The Salukis had a point differential of +12 when Rupert was on the floor, but he was limited to just 21 minutes.

“Knowing I was in foul trouble early, I feel like it kinda impacted a lot,” Rupert said. “But knowing that JD Muila, he came into the game and defended Brodie. He’s been picking me up all year long. I try to pick him up as much as possible. We just couldn’t get over the hump.”

Drake emphasized the three-point game in the first half, hitting six shots in 10 attempts. But as the deep ball dried up in the second half, the Bulldogs transitioned to focusing more on the midrange, which garnered success from Roman Penn, Garrett Sturtz and MVC Player of the Year Tucker DeVries.

“We were trying to take away threes and prevent layups, try to make them take some tough contested twos,” Mullins said. “In that first half, they got too many threes. In the second half, they probably got too many layups.”

The Enterprise Center saw an influx of Saluki fans packing the southwest end of the stands. Between the Dawg Pound, the pep band, and fans in the audience, Southern felt the love of the community that it had felt all year long at the Banterra Center.

“Our fans, they’ve been at every single game, every home game sold out, supporting us,” Rupert said.

“Wins, losses, downs, ups; it really doesn’t matter. They come with us everywhere we go. Especially the Dawg Pound. Our fansbase is just amazing. That’s all I can say: amazing.”

It is possible that SIU will be selected to one of several postseason tournaments, but its shot at an NCAA Tournament bid is gone after being eliminated from Arch Madness. Mullins stated that the near future is undetermined, but the loss to oil bill

Drake ends the meaningful stretch of SIU’s season. Assistant Sports editor Cole Daily can be reached at cdaily@dailyegyptian.com Sports reporter Brandyn Wilcoxen can be reached at bwilcoxen@dailyegyptian.com or on Twitter at @BrandynWilcoxen.

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