Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team looks for first win against Salukis

Southeast Missouri State freshman guard Robby Dosier lived about 10 minutes away from SIU Arena growing up in Carbondale, Illinois.

Even after he verbally committed to play for the Redhawks last year he continued to go watch the Southern Illinois men's basketball team at home.

Tonight Dosier, who began his high school career at Carbondale before attending Marion High School his final two years, returns to face his hometown college team and now his regional rival, and will have plenty of family and friends in the crowd.

"They've been excited, and I'm coming home, so I'm excited," Dosier said.

Tip-off between the Redhawks and Salukis in their 115th meeting is set for 7:05 p.m.

"It's real cool just because I've always dreamed about playing a college basketball game in their arena," said Dosier, who has played in four games and made one start this season. "I mean, I've played plenty of high school games there, but I've kind of grown up around SIU basketball. To go back and play them is really cool. It's really exciting. I know tons of people that are going to be there, and it's going to be fun."

First-year Southeast coach Rick Ray's memories from his time competing against the Salukis when he was an assistant at Indiana State aren't nearly as fond as Dosier's, but he's excited about his first experience of the rivalry game.

"I remember it not being a fun place to play because that was in the day when they had Bruce Weber, and then it went to Matt Painter, and then it went to Chris Lowry," Ray said, "and they were by far the most physical, intense, in-your-face defense that you could play of anybody in the nation. It was always going to be a physical ballgame."

While Ray and the Redhawks aren't taking SIU's defense lightly, their larger concern is slowing down the Salukis' Missouri Valley Conference-leading offense that averages 79.9 points per game.

SIU is off to its best start since 2005-06 at 6-1. The Salukis, who are 4-0 at home, defeated Air Force, Florida A&M, Kent State, Sam Houston State and Oakland before losing 71-66 to the University of Texas El Paso on Friday. They rebounded with an 80-79 win against Portland on Saturday.

Senior guard Anthony Beane leads the MVC in scoring, averaging 20.4 points per game.

He's shooting 47.1 percent from the field, 40.6 percent from 3-point range and 80 percent from the free-throw line.

Beane was the only Saluki to score double figures against Southeast last year. He had 22 points on 8-of-22 shooting.

"He's a guy that can like make bad shots, so sometimes when you're watching film you say, 'Man, that's a bad, contested shot,' and all of a sudden it's going through the net, so he's a guy that's a dynamic scorer that can create offense for himself," Ray said. "But the difference with him is he's kind of like a Steph Curry-type guy. Obviously he's not to the level of Steph Curry, but what I'm saying by that is he can dribble to make a 3, he can also come off a cut to make a 3, so those guys are hard to guard.

"Plus he gets to the free-throw line a lot, and the reason he does it is because you have to step up and guard him out on the floor all the time because he can shoot the basketball, so he's a difficult matchup."

Junior Sean O'Brien, a 6-foot-7, 215-pound forward, and "hard-playing guy," according to Ray, averages 13.6 points and 7.6 rebounds per game.

Mike Rodriguez, a 5-10, 160-pound junior transfer point guard from Marshalltown Community College, averages 10.9 points and 4.0 assists per game. He ranked eighth nationally in scoring with 22.5 points per game last season.

Junior guard Tyler Smithpeters, 6-4, 179 pounds, averages 8.1 points. He's shooting 44.4 percent and 13 of his 16 field goals are 3-pointers.

He's shooting 52 percent from beyond the arc.

Ray said the Redhawks' task of slowing down the Salukis will start on the offensive end by limiting turnovers.

"When a team's as potent as they are scoring the basketball, the last thing you want to do is give them more opportunities to score the ball," Ray said. "I think the second thing is we've got to make sure we either limit one of two things. We've either got to limit Anthony Beane or limit the people around him. But if Anthony Beane has 25 points and Smithpeters has 15 points and Rodriguez has 15 points, then we've done a bad job."

Southeast has lost its last seven games on SIU's home court, with its last win in Carbondale coming in 1982.

The Redhawks are searching for their first win this season after starting 0-5.

"We've been struggling since the beginning of the season, but this game, none of that matters. It's all about getting better," senior guard Isiah Jones said. "*... Records don't mean nothing right now. It's all about this game, moving forward. Every game is about that game. It's not about the records we have. Like I was telling one of my teammates, 'We're 0-5, but how are we going to respond?' We're in the hole. We're backed into a corner. Are we going to fight our way out and get better or are we just going to back down. I feel like this team isn't going to give up. We're going to keep fighting and get better."

Jones, who is from Pulaski, Illinois, about 40 miles away from Carbondale, and junior guard Antonius Cleveland both remember the last meeting with SIU, when former G/F Jarekious Bradley knocked down a game-winning shot with .8 seconds left on the clock to snap Southeast's five-game losing streak to the Salukis.

"Hope it's the same intensity as last year. Hope the outcome's the same, too," Jones said with a grin.

Cleveland expects that the Redhawks' 55-54 win last year added a little fuel to the rivalry, but they're trying not to focus too much on that.

"Our main focus is just to be disciplined and just see if SIU can really beat us versus us beating ourselves," Cleveland said. "Just giving ourselves a chance to win versus always turning the ball over here and there and giving teams a break. Let's see if they can actually beat us."