Greg MakosDaily Egyptian
For the first time in the last five seasons, the SIU men's basketball team enters the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament without a No. 1 seed. They are a bit thankful for that.
After four straight conference titles failed to produce a postseason championship, the Salukis will try to end the drought as the No. 2 seed. They will have to do so in arguably the best tournament field in the history of the Valley.
But the team is far younger than they have been recently. The old players, though, left the current group with some pointers. For example, Saluki legend Darren Brooks offered Jamaal Tatum this advice.
"When I was younger I was always thinking about that championship game and thinking about getting there," Tatum said. "Darren and Stetson had to tell me that this isn't going to be easy. You got to worry about the team that's ahead of you even if their record is not good, even if it is great. You got to be worried about the team you are playing."
Tatum and the other veterans who have been to the postseason before have tried to offer the same advice to this class of freshmen to help relieve the pressure. A class in which second year head coach Chris Lowery knows has greatly matured throughout the season.
"They are not freshmen anymore," Lowery said. "We have played a whole season. Now they have already played more games then they played in high school and at this point you just hope they have already hit the wall and just keep playing."
There may be a sense of urgency in the air for the Salukis. They have gone from a near lock to make the NCAA Tournament following a road win over bitter rival Creighton, to gasping for air to fill their bubble following three devastating losses in a row. A road loss to a resurgent Bradley bunch was followed by a tough loss to Louisiana Tech in the Bracket Buster and an inexcusable loss to lowly Evansville.
The Salukis were able to pull off a last-second home win in the regular season finale over the slumping Northern Iowa Panthers, who have slipped from the preseason favorite to win the conference to the No. 6 seed in the tournament. The victory capped off a disappointing 3-5 record in the final eight games of the regular season. However, with the win the Salukis did salvage the No. 2 seed and possibly relieved some of the pressure going into the weekend.
"It's hard to be number one and consistently take the best effort from everybody day in and day out," Lowery said. "Now going into the tournament, to be a number one the burden is even greater because now it's more national."
The Salukis may have Tony Young to thank for their high seed in the tournament. Young's floating jumper with just over seven seconds remaining propelled the Salukis to a victory over UNI. Young is hopeful that being knocked from the No. 1 seed will act as an extra sense of motivation for this year's team.
"I think there's always going to be a lot of pressure being in the league that we're in," Young said. "I'm mad we didn't get the number one. Hopefully us not having the number one seed this year, it will spark a fire in everybody to win the tournament."
