CARBONDALE, Ill. – With six players scoring at least eight points, the Illinois State Redbirds ran out to an 80-55 series-opening win over the Southern Illinois Salukis on Saturday afternoon by an 80-55 final score.
DJ Horne scored a game-high 17 points, hitting on half of his dozen shots from the field and 3-of-8 from beyond the arc. Josiah Strong scored a dozen points off the bench, while Emon Washington and Dedric Boyd each scored 11. Two others, Abdou Ndiaye and Harouna Sissoko each added eight points for the 'Birds.
Washington pulled down a team-high 10 rebounds for his first collegiate double-double, while also giving this Redbird squad three freshmen who have pulled down double-figure rebounds in a game – the first time in program history that three freshman have accomplished that feat. Alston Andrews grabbed six rebounds, as the Redbirds out-rebounded the Salukis 45-to-33. Howard Fleming Jr. dished out a game-high six assists, with Illinois State sporting a 21-to-7 assist-to-turnover ratio in the game.
Southern Illinois struck first in the game with a lay-in 44 seconds into the contest, before ISU scored the next four. Another SIU lay-in tied the score at four, before the Redbirds went on a 10-2 run over a 3:45 span to stretch the lead to 14-6. Another 7-0 run took the margin to double-digits, and a 7-0 half-ending run took the margin from seven to 14, giving the Redbirds a 40-26 halftime advantage.
After a basket cut the gap to a dozen points, ISU used yet another 7-0 run to stretch the margin to 19, and a Washington highlight ally-oop from Dusan Mahorcic started an 18-0 run that put the margin to its high point in the game – 37 points – before the Redbirds cruised to the 25-point win.
Southern Illinois was led by Ben Harvey who scored a team-high 14 points, while Kyler Filewich had a 13-point, 10-rebound double-double. Saluki active leading scorer Lance Jones scored two points, 11 off of his scoring average during the season.
For the game, Illinois State made 30 of its 67 shots from the field (44.8%), 10-of-30 (33.3%) from beyond the arc, and 10-of-12 (83.3%) from the charity stripe. Southern Illinois was 21-of-55 from the field – a percentage of 38.2 – and went 6-of-26 from three-point distance and 7-of-15 from the free throw line.
The two teams meet again on Sunday at 3 p.m. in the second of two games in the season series.
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