Game Notes: Wichita State (PDF) | Southern Illinois (PDF)

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rv/- WICHITA STATE (9-5, 3-0 MVC) at SOUTHERN ILLINOIS (14-2, 3-0 MVC)
Saturday, Jan. 9, 2016  | 3:00 p.m. CT
Carbondale, Ill./SIU Arena

Telecast --
On Air: CBS Sports Network
Announcers: Andrew Catalon, Steve Lappas & Gary Parrish
* - In Wichita: Cox (2260), DirectTV (221), DISH (158), FiOS (594), U-Verse (1643)

Radio --
On Air: KEYN 103.7 FM
Online: goshockers.com/watch
Announcers: Mike Kennedy & Bob Hull

Social Media ---
Twitter: @GoShockers, @GoShockersLive
Facebook: facebook.com/WichitaStateUniversityAthletics
Instagram: instagram.com/goshockers
Exposure: goshockers.exposure.co
 

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OPENING TIPS
• Two of the Missouri Valley Conference's three remaining unbeatens go toe-to-toe in Carbondale when preseason favorite Wichita State meets surprise contender Southern Illinois.
• Wednesday night, the Shockers won a heavy-weight bout with Evansville (picked second in the preseason) 67-64, behind 17 points from Anton Grady and 16 points, nine assists from Fred VanVleet to notch their 39th-consecutive home win.
• An underrated rebounder, VanVleet needs just five more boards to reach 400 for his career, which would make him only the second player in MVC history to record 1,000-points, 500-assists and 400-rebounds, (Jake Odum, Indiana State is the other). The WSU All-American enters the night with 1,167 points, 395 boards and 506 assists.
• The Shockers are 7-1 since the Dec. 5 return of VanVleet, who missed four November games with a hamstring injury and was slowed in two others. He's averaged 14.0 pts, 5.8 ast and 2.2 stl over that  stretch.
 • Saturday's game features two of MVC's volume leaders in conference wins. Gregg Marshall (tied for 8th) and Barry Hinson (5th) are on a short list of just nine coaches with 100-or-more Valley victories.
• WSU is shooting for its fourth-consecutive 4-0 start to MVC play and its fifth-straight MVC road victory. WSU's 39 Valley road wins over the last six seasons are more than any two teams combined (39-7 record, .848).
 • The Shockers ended an 11-game losing streak at SIU Arena in 2010 with a 55-54 victory and have now won five of their last six in Carbondale.
• The Shockers have topped 50% from the field in 4-of-5 trips to SIU (2011-15), shooting a combined 53.1%, and they've reached the 80-point mark in three of the last four games there. Prior to that, WSU had gone 16-straight trips to Carbondale without scoring more than 70.
• WSU (+5.9) and SIU (+2.7) have the MVC's two best turnover margins.
• VanVleet - a native of Rockford, Ill. - is 9-0 as a starter in his home state. He's 12-1 overall with his lone loss coming at SIU as a freshman.
• Shaquille Morris scored a career-high 17 points in his last trip to Carbondale. His .600 field goal percentage ranks just ahead of Xavier McDaniel's .593 sophomore clip as the best underclassman percentage in school history.
 
LAST YEAR vs. SIU:
Mar. 6, 2015 – MVC Quarterfinals – Wichita State 56, Southern Illinois 45
Feb. 15, 2015 – Carbondale, Ill. – Wichita State 84, Southern Illinois 62
Jan. 14, 2015 – Wichita, Kan. – Wichita State 67, Southern Illinois 55
 
• WSU won both regular season meetings against SIU for the fourth time in six years and added a bonus win in the quarterfinals of the MVC Tournament, joining the 1981 Elite Eight Shockers as the only WSU teams to sweep three-games from the Salukis in a single season.
• WSU's big men shined in the two regular season games:
Darius Carter scored 25 points on 11-of-15 shooting to key a 12-point home win on Jan. 14, and Morris errupted for 17 points and seven rebounds in 15 minutes off the bench to lead the Shockers to a 22-point romp in the Feb. 16 rematch.
• Despite the strong post scoring efforts, SIU became only the third team in five seasons to outrebound the Shockers multiple times in the same year, holding +4 margin in both regular season contests and a +9 margin in St. Louis. It also  marked the only time in Marshall's first eight seasons at WSU that a team has outrebounded the Shockers three times.
• WSU held double-digit halftime leads in both regular season games but struggled to put the Salukis away in the MVC quarterfinals. SIU was within 41-35 with just over 12-minutes to go in St. Louis, but Tekele Cotton's reverse layup (which boosted him over 1,000 career points) sparked a mini-run for the Shockers, who went on to win by 11.
 
THE ALL-TIME SERIES
• SIU (48-43), Bradley (71-67) and Northern Iowa (26-25) are the only active MVC schools with all-time series leads against the Shockers, though WSU has been quickly gobbling up ground in recent years.
• Fred VanVleet is the only current Shocker who has participated in a loss against SIU. He's 6-1 in his career vs. the Salukis.
• SIU owns six wins over Gregg Marshall - second-most among active Valley head coaches, though after dropping his first four games to the Salukis, Marshall (11-6 career vs. SIU) has turned the tables.
• The Shockers have captured 11 of the last 13 games in the series, including back-to-back in Carbondale.
• WSU's three-game sweep of SIU last year marked the ninth time that the Shockers had gone 3-0 against an MVC opponent in eight seasons under Marshall. Six of those have come in the last three years.
• Points against SIU came at a premium for many years, but WSU has shot 50-percent-or-better nine times in that stretch of 13 meetings, including twice in three games last year. In 2014-15  WSU was a combined 72-of-144 (.500) against SIU.
 
SCOUTING THE SALUKIS
• With 14 wins in its first 16 games, Southern Illinois has already eclipsed its 2014-15 victory total (12).
• Three days after limiting Evansville's D.J. Balentine to a season-low 14 points on 17 shots, WSU faces another stiff challenge in the form of Anthony Beane, Jr... A second-team All-Valley selection last year, the talented guard has taken a leap forward in his senior campaign, ranking among the conference leaders at 21.0 points per game (up from 16.1 a season ago) and 2.6 three-pointers.
• Beane poured in 32 points to lead the Salukis to an attention-grabbing win over Northern Iowa last Saturday, earning MVC Co-Player of the Week honors.
• SIU boasts the MVC's two best three-point shooters by percentage with Tyler Smithpeters (27/56, .482) edging out Beane (42/91, .462)...
• Notably, the Salukis ranked dead last in the conference in three-pointers made last year (138) and were eighth in percentage. They've improved as a team from .330 to .380, and are significantly better at defending the three-ball. Opponents are shooting just .295 percent - down from .379 last season.
• 6-foot-7 Bola Olaniyan ranks second on the conference rebounding chart (8.5) and is a native of Lagos, Nigeria - the same city that produced former Shocker 7-footer Ehimen Orukpe (2010-13).
 
NICE START
20 -- VanVleet's league-best assist total through three MVC games (seven more than any other player).
8 -- VanVleet steals - tied for MVC lead.
7 -- Conference-Only Team categories topped by WSU, including scoring offense (73.0), scoring defense (56.3), scoring margin (16.7), assists (16.0), turnover margin (7.3), offensive rebounds (11.0) and offensive rebound percentage (.330).
 
THE STAKES
A Shocker Win Would...
... be their eighth win in nine tries and extend their season-best winning streak to five-games.
... extend their MVC road winning streak to six games, dating back to last February.
... be Gregg Marshall's 214th at WSU - six shy of Ralph Miller for the school's all-time record.
... be their third-straight in Carbondale (matching a program-best) and their sixth in the last seven visits to SIU.
... improve them to 4-0 in MVC play for the fourth-consecutive year.
...give them six-straight
 
A Shocker Loss Would...
...snap a four-game winning streak.
...be just their second in the last three MVC seasons.
... drop WSU out of first place for the first time since the end of the 2012-13 season.
... be less good than a win.
 
UP NEXT
WSU travels to Missouri State on Wednesday, Jan. 13 for an 8 p.m. tip on Cox Channel Kansas. The game will be shared with Fox Sports Midwest (subject to blackout in the Cox Kansas and Kansas City markets).
 
The Shockers have won 10-straight against Missouri State - their longest winning streak in a series that dates back to 1942. MSU is averaging just 53.0 points per game over that stretch, and WSU has held the Bears under 50 points in three of the last four meetings... On Feb. 7 in Wichita, WSU posted a 78-35 win. It was the lowest scoring output for a Shocker opponent since December of 1980... In that game, Fred VanVleet tallied the first riple-double by a Shocker since 1972 (10 pts, 10 reb, 11 assists).