Salukis take down Tennessee State in front of loud crowd
After a tough start to the season, the Southern Illinois Salukis have broken program records in their last two games and hit the century mark in back-to-back games for the first time ever.
Tennessee State scored the first bucket of the game but that's the only lead the Tigers would have Wednesday at the Banterra Center as Southern controlled the game and took down the Ohio Valley Conference foe 100-72 in front of nearly 4,000 area students for SIU's annual Elementary Day Game.
The Salukis broke a program record for points in a game in their last win over Chicago State and that trend continued Wednesday as Southern dished out 33 assists, breaking a record that stood for more than 32 years.
SIU Head Coach Kelly Bond-White said she noticed something in the game long before the record was broken early in the fourth quarter.
"Back-to-back games of sharing the ball," she said. "That's the first thing that jumps out to me is 33 assists on 41 baskets. I've told you from the beginning, chemistry is paramount and we're starting to get it a little bit on offense. Defensively, we're still working through some things but we saw glimpses."
Six Salukis had at least two assists with Quierra Love leading the way as she finished with 11 points and 12 assists to set a new career high that she just set last week against Chicago State.
"She's a facilitator first," Bond-White said. "She's a true point guard in every sense of the word. She's always looking for her teammates first. What I try to tell her is when she takes the open look and she starts hitting the mid-range shot and being aggressive offensively, now she's a threat and creates even more of her teammates."
Love said 62 assists in their last two games is just a testament to what they've been working on in practice.
"We work on moving the ball, reversing the ball, sharing it and it'll come back to you," she said.
While Love was the maestro on offense, several players found the basket as six SIU players finished in double figures.
Ashley Jones, Promise Taylor and Laniah Randle each finished with 16 points in the win. Jaidynn Mason added 15 and Tamara Nard finished with 11.
Jones backed up her MVC Newcomer of the Week away with 16 points on 6-of-9 from the field to go with three 3-pointers. She also added five assists and five rebounds for Southern.
Bond-White said spreading it around on offense is something she knows they can do.
"Any given night we can have stars on the floor," she said. "Any given night we can have players step up offensively and that's how we're recruiting. That's what we want to be known as. A team that can distribute and a team that has so many weapons."
Southern went 41-of-65 (63.1%) to come close to the program record for field goals in a game with 43. SIU went 5-of-11 from beyond the arc and was 13-of-17 from the free-throw line.
Tennessee State was led by Saniah Parker's 16 points. Ashley Malone (13 points) and Erica Haynes-Overton (12 points) also finished in double digits for the 4-4 Tigers.
Wednesday's game also brought the return of the Elementary Day Game at the Banterra Center, something that's taken a couple of years off, due to COVID but area students were out in bunches and brought a lot of energy for the Salukis.
"They want to be you one day," Bond-White said to her team about the students in attendance. "They want to be our guys that take the court tonight. We owe it to them. Their teachers are here. Their teachers are preaching the same thing I preach every day."
Bond-White also wanted to thank Drew Novara, assistant coach Lulu McKinney and Ashley Booth for all of their hard work getting everything organized.
"There were several people that contributed but those three, I know I worked their nerves pretty hard because we want to continue growing this," she said. "We know we've done it before and we just want to give back to the community so now it's our turn."
Love said the students gave a big boost.
"We got great energy," she said. "It definitely fueled us."
Southern is off until Dec. 21 when it hits the road to take on Saint Louis University.
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