ESPN.com beginning to recognize SIU - sort of

Kent Williams' picture could be seen on the front page of ESPN.com Sunday. Two clicks on his head linked readers to an Andy Katz story titled "SIU, Seahawks hope to produce Cinderella sequels."

The article, written about the Salukis and UNC Wilmington, was about the difficulty of Cinderella repeats. Katz said, among other things, that SIU would have to win the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament to make it to the Big Dance.

"The country has all but forgotten about UNCW and SIU," Katz wrote.

The website inadvertently proved its own point when it posted a picture of head coach Bruce Weber talking to Blake Schoen, but identified Schoen as Williams.

Late Sunday night, most likely after many e-mails, the mistake was corrected.

Salukis looking to be a shoo-in for at least second

Following Saturday's loss to SIU, Southwest Missouri State fell one game behind the Salukis and Creighton in the MVC standings.

But SMS still has to face Creighton twice, making the Bears' odds of catching the Salukis very low.

MVC tournament favorites

A Creighton-SIU MVC tournament rematch is looking more and more likely as the season progresses. If the season ended today, Creighton, owners of the head-to-head- tiebreaker, would be seeded No. 1 and SIU would be seeded No.2.

The Salukis have also all but clinched a tournament position opposite the Bluejays and will most likely avoid them until the final.

For SIU to play Creighton in a round earlier than the final, the Salukis or Bluejays would need to drop to fourth place or finish in second and third, which is unlikely.

Moving up

SIU received 17 votes in the AP Top 25 poll released Monday. It's 12 more than the five it received last week good enough for 36th place in the country.

Creighton moved up to No. 12.

Williams watch

Willams is now only 33 points behind Ashraf Amaya for third all-time on the SIU career scoring list and 47 behind Mike Glenn for second.

At his current pace of 14.7 points per game, Williams will move into third Feb. 19 at home against SMS and into second Feb. 22 against UW-Milwaukee.

Williams is still 257 behind Charlie Vaughn for first place all-time. Even if the Salukis make another Sweet 16 run, he will need to average nearly 20 points per game to reach Vaughn.

Dearman buries 'big game' label with pen, play

Senior Jermaine Dearman blasted his critics in a Daily Egyptian guest column Wednesday, telling the southern Illinois media exactly where they can stick all the stories about him only showing up for big games.

The next day, Dearman scored 16 points and pulled down seven rebounds in front of a mere 2,718 people at Knapp Center in Des Moines, Iowa.

The game was not televised and it was against a weak and poorly known team.

"Hopefully that can kill a lot of the stereotypes that I had," Dearman said. "It just further proves my point that I take every game serious, and every game I treat the same, no matter what situation we're in."

SIU 4-1 on TV

The Salukis have won four of the five the games this season that have been televised in southern Illinois. The only loss was to Creighton on ESPN2.

SIU is 3-0 on WSIU-TV and 1-0 on Fox Sports Midwest. Three of the final seven home games, plus the MVC tournament, will be televised on those two channels.

The Bracket Buster game against Milwaukee-Wisconsin will be on ESPN2.

Weber approaching 100 wins

SIU head coach Bruce Weber, if the Salukis continue their winning streak, will reach 100 career wins Feb. 26 at home against Evansville.

With a loss in the next two weeks, Weber would hit the century mark March 1 at Creighton.

All of Weber's career victories as a head coach have been at SIU.

Reporter Michael Brenner can be reached at mbrenner@dailyegyptian.com