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UIC Athletics

thevalley
Evette Tamayo
50
UIC UIC 7-6,0-2 MVC
62
Winner Southern Ill. SIU 9-4,1-1 MVC
UIC UIC
7-6,0-2 MVC
50
Final
62
Southern Ill. SIU
9-4,1-1 MVC
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
UIC UIC 30 20 50
Southern Ill. SIU 32 30 62

Game Recap: Men's Basketball |

Men’s Basketball Falls On Road at Southern Illinois, 62-50

Isaiah Rivera led the Flames with 18 points and five rebounds.

CARBONDALE, Ill. (Dec. 30, 2023) – Senior guard Isaiah Rivera (Geneseo, Ill./Geneseo/Colorado State) brought UIC within 53-50 heading into the final two minutes to play, but Southern Illinois closed the game on a 9-0 run to pull out a 62-50 Missouri Valley Conference win over the Flames (7-6, 0-2) on Saturday night at the Banterra Center in Carbondale, Ill.
 
Rivera finished with a team-high 18 points and five rebounds, while redshirt sophomore forward Jaden Brownell (Sandy, Utah/Alta) and sophomore guard CJ Jones (East St. Louis, Ill./East St. Louis) each scored all nine of their points in the first half.
 
Senior guard Toby Okani (Orange, N.J./Cushing Academy (Mass.) also reached two personal milestones on Saturday, recording his 500th career rebound and 100th career block. He finished with a game-high four blocks and a career-best four steals, as well as sharing team-high honors with five rebounds.
 
UIC came into the contest as the nation's leader in blocked shots (6.9 bpg.) and three-point percentage (.241) defense and largely built upon those rankings against Southern Illinois, finishing with eight blocks and limiting the Salukis to 6-of-21 (.286) from beyond the arc.
 
Xavier Johnson, who entered the game ranked second in the nation in scoring, tallied 31 points for Southern Illinois (9-4, 1-1), including the Salukis' final 14 markers of the night.
 
COACH'S COMMENTS
"In retrospect, at the start of the game, Southern threw some punches in the first four or five minutes while we settled in," said head coach Luke Yaklich. "To our guys' credit, they responded and punched back to get a lead there late in the first half and I thought we did a really good job there. This game was close the whole way and we had a chance to get those swing and momentum plays. We had a couple open threes and a couple layups that didn't go down. Conversely, they had two really difficult threes and a couple other shots they made to swing the momentum and get the crowd involved. We had our opportunities, but when it was time to go, we didn't execute the way we needed to and they did."
 
FIRST HALF
  • SIU scored the game's first five points before Jones got the Flames on the board with a step-back jumper 1:55 into the game.
  • Rivera connected on a turnaround jumper in the lane exactly five minutes in to bring UIC within 11-7.
  • The Salukis scored six of the next eight points to move ahead, 17-9 with 10:54 to go in the half.
  • Brownell converted an old-fashioned three-point play at the 9:32 mark to make it 17-12, SIU.
  • The hosts logged the next five points to take their largest lead of the half (21-12) with 8:21 remaining.
  • Jones canned a three-pointer as the shot block buzzer sounded (7:47) to kick-start a 16-4 UIC run over the next three-and-a-half minutes.
  • Okani delivered his own three-point play at the 6:15 mark, followed by a pair of three-pointers by Brownell just 52 seconds apart (5:49 and 4:57).
  • Rivera capped the run with consecutive layups — the first gave UIC the lead at 26-25 with 4:01 left and the second came as he was fouled to make it 28-25, Flames (3:14).
  • SIU then posted a 7-0 run of its own to retake a 32-28 lead with 1:07 to go.
  • Jones again played beat the clock, delivering on a driving layup just before the halftime horn to make it 32-30, Salukis, at the break.
  • Jones and Brownell each had nine points in the first half to lead the Flames, who shot 46.2 percent from the floor, including 3-of-8 three-pointers.
 
SECOND HALF
  • After SIU hit a three-pointer on its first possession, junior guard Ethan Pickett (Pensacola, Fla./Cherokee/Triton) answered with a layup to bring UIC within 35-32 just 59 seconds in.
  • Defense largely ruled the opening portion of the second half, with the two teams combining for 14 points during the first nine minutes of the period.
  • Pickett's putback at the 14:55 mark made it 37-34, SIU.
  • The Salukis got the lead back up to seven points (44-37) midway through the second half.
  • UIC responded with three-pointers from junior guard Yusef Salih (Gainesville, Va./Highland School/Idaho) and Rivera, the latter drawing the Flames within 44-43 with 8:18 left.
  • The Salukis scored the next four points before Rivera countered with a pair of driving layups to make it 48-47, SIU with 4:41 to play.
  • Rivera's layup at the 2:16 mark kept the Flames within one possession (53-50) but that was as close as UIC would get down the stretch.
 
NOTES
  • Rivera has scored in double figures 10 times in 13 games this season. His 18 points on Saturday were the most he has scored in a game since UIC's Nov. 25 win over George Washington in the semifinals of the Baha Mar Hoops Nassau Championship in Nassau, Bahamas.
  • UIC had eight blocks on Saturday, one off their season high of nine rejections, set on Dec. 12 (Green Bay) and matched on Dec. 16 (Western Michigan). In their last five games, the Flames have averaged 8.2 blocks per game.
  • Okani, who came into the game leading the MVC in blocked shots (2.58 bpg.) and ranked 10th in steals (1.4 spg.), added to both totals with four blocks and four steals. It was the seventh time this year he has had at least three blocks in a game, while Okani's career-high four steals topped his previous best of three on six occasions (the last on Nov. 30 against Illinois State at Credit Union 1 Arena).
  • Brownell had three blocks on the night, his third consecutive game with at least three blocks and fourth this season. In the past three games, he is averaging 3.7 bpg.
  • UIC finished with only 10 turnovers, the third consecutive game the Flames have registered 10 or fewer giveaways.
 
UP NEXT
UIC wraps up its two-game MVC road trip next Tuesday, Jan. 2, with a 7 p.m. (CT) contest at Murray State. The game will be streamed live on ESPN+, with the free live Flames Network radio broadcast and live stats both available at UICFlames.com.
 
Tickets for all UIC basketball home games can be purchased online through Ticketmaster and UICFlames.com/Tickets, as well as through the UIC Athletics Ticket Office (312-413-UIC1) or by visiting the Credit Union 1 Arena box office on game night.
 
For more information, fans are encouraged to visit UICFlames.com, or follow the Flames on social media through X (@UIC_MBB and @UICFlames) and Instagram (@uic_mbb and @uicflames).
 
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