Western Illinois' Kaimarr Price tries to maneuver around an IUPUI defender in Saturday's Summit League game in Macomb. Price finished with 11 points and seven rebounds as the Leathernecks dropped a 56-45 decision.
In most cases, when a team ends the first half on a 22-10 run, they are heading into the break in good shape.
Saturday night, the Western Illinois men’s basketball team needed that run just to get back into the game.
After an extremely cold start that didn’t see the Leathernecks get on the scoreboard for the first nine and a half minutes, the nice run just wasn’t enough. The IUPUI Jaguars used their 20-0 start to the game to hold off the Western Illinois comeback attempt, as they won by a score of 56-45.
“We thought we were ready for the game, but they just came out and hit us in the mouth,” Western Illinois guard Jelani Johnson said. “Matt (Lander) had his and-one to get us on the board, and we knew from there we couldn’t let them do this to us on our home court.”
Whether it was a case or nerves or just an off night, the Leathernecks (7-14, 2-8) came out ice cold. They missed their first 12 shots before Lander got them on the scoreboard.
“Down 20-0 we could have quit, but we didn’t,” Western Illinois coach Jim Molinari said. “I don’t really know why, but we came out very nervous. Once we got into the flow and scored a few baskets in the paint we relaxed and got a little more comfortable on the offensive end.”
With a huge early deficit looming, the Leathernecks huddled up and talked about what needed to be done to get back into the game.
“We’re all college basketball players so we’ve been on both sides of a score like that,” Johnson said. “We’ve been up by 20 and down by 20, so basically we just stuck together as a team. We have a great bond on this team so we just huddled up and said we can’t let this happen.”
Western Illinois battled and headed into halftime down only eight. The Leathernecks were a rimmed-out three pointer at the buzzer from Jack Houpt away from only being down five and heading into half buzzing with momentum.
Lander led the Leathernecks with 15 points while Johnson and Kaimarr Price added 13 and 11 respectively. Despite having three players in double digits, overall Western Illinois only shot 36.7 percent for the game.
“The reality of the situation is that you have to give them a lot of credit, but we didn’t shoot well,” Molinari said. “You just can’t shoot 2-for-20 from three against a match-up zone. We just couldn’t make any shots. Our problem is our perimeter play. We just have no depth. We have guys playing out there that really aren’t perimeter players like Mael (Amenyedzi).”
Whenever Western Illinois would start to make a run in the second half, IUPUI (13-10, 7-3) would spread the offense and work to one of their three big guys. Christian Siakam (6-7, 245), Leroy Nobles (6-5, 195), and Alex Young (6-6, 200) accounted for 45 of the Jaguars 56 points.
Even though the Leathernecks knew what to expect, it’s very difficult to stop.
“They are always a scrappy team,” Johnson said. “When we played them earlier in the year we knew we were in for a physical game. They were able to feed it down to their big guys like (Christian) Siakam. They have a lot of strong players that know what they want to do. It’s just a matter of trying to fight with them down there.”
One plus that Coach Molinari took out of the game was the fact that they were able to take care of the ball. The Leathernecks only turned the ball over nine times, with two of them coming on back to back misfired passes when the Jaguars executed a full-court press midway through the second half. The steals and subsequent baskets allowed IUPUI to build a comfortable enough lead to coast down the stretch.
“We watched some tape and knew the press was coming, so organization wasn’t really the problem,” Molinari said. “I think we just have some guys out there that are forced to play in positions they aren’t used to which makes them uncomfortable getting to where they should be. That’s just something we are going to have to live with going forward.”
The Leathernecks return to play Thursday night when they host Summit League leader Oakland at 7 p.m. The Golden Grizzlies (16-8, 11-0) have won a Summit League record 19 straight conference games and are currently a 13 seed in ESPN’s latest NCAA Tournament Bracketology projection.
Halftime–IUPUI 30-22. 3-Point Goals–IUPUI 2-15 (Thomas 1-2, Nobles 1-4, Young 0-1, Gibbs 0-1, Ashworth 0-1, Esposito 0-6), W. Illinois 2-20 (Johnson 1-3, Houpt 1-7, Niang 0-2, Amenyedzi 0-2, Smith 0-3, Lander 0-3). Fouled Out–None. Rebounds–IUPUI 38 (Young 13), W. Illinois 28 (Price 7). Assists–IUPUI 10 (Esposito 3), W. Illinois 9 (Amenyedzi, Johnson, Lander, Price 2). Total Fouls–IUPUI 10, W. Illinois 16. A–874.
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