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What next?

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Darren Brooks walked off the court Tuesday with his head in his hands, and the rest of the team left the scene of Tuesday's 70-53 disaster looking at the ground.

The Salukis had suffered arguably their most embarrassing loss since the 2003 MVC championship game, when the team shot near 15 percent in the first half and lost 80-56.

After that Creighton game, then-junior Bryan Turner said the bucket seemed to have a lid on it. The same seemed to happen Tuesday night when SIU shot from farther than five feet.

"It just seemed that today nothing fell for us," forward LaMar Owen said.

The shots did not fall, and SIU is going to tumble in the polls.

Essentially, a trip to Hawaii and then a drive to Arkansas undid the terrific performances at Las Vegas, and the SIU men's basketball team will not be ranked anytime soon.

The Salukis looked like a team perfectly aware of that fact as the bus prepared to leave Alltel Arena

Nearly the entire team managed to get on the bus about 15 minutes after the game and no one was eager to talk. Once the bus left, the Salukis had a long, five-plus hour drive in complete darkness to think about what happened.

"It's real salty right now," said guard Jamaal Tatum about the team's mood on the bus. "It's not good."

SIU now has to pick up the pieces and turn back into the team that looked like a powerhouse in Las Vegas, the team that pushed the ball without screwing up and was draining outside shots when it needed them.

Head coach Chris Lowery was less than pleased, using the term lethargic and lack of energy on multiple occasions.

Some players had excuses for being lethargic - Brooks was fighting a virus, Hairston was bothered by an injury and Tony Young limped off the court in the second half.

But Lowery said, very plainly, there would be no excuses.

"We just need to go back home, recuperate and get ready for this coming weekend," Lowery said.

That could mean extra practice like after the Hawaii loss, or it could mean rest. Either way, SIU knows it needs to move on.

"It's tough, but I just got to be worried about the next game now that this game's over," Tatum said. "We can't do anything about it. We have to go to the next game."

The next game is against Murray State, which has yet to beat a quality opponent but did manage to hang with Missouri.

In theory, the Racers are not as good as Arkansas-Little Rock, but don't expect SIU to care. Tatum said SIU learned a valuable lesson Tuesday, the only positive he could pull out of the debacle.

Now, no matter who it is, Tatum said there would be no aura of invincibility anymore. "Now we know that when we step on the court, just because we're Salukis, we're going to win every game," Tatum said. "Just because of what we did in the past and all the NCAA tournaments we were in, that means nothing. No one's going to bow down to us."