CARBONDALE, Ill. — For the third year in a row, Oklahoma State found itself in the NIT. For the third year in a row Sean Sutton tried to convince his team the NCAA's little-brother tournament was worth its effort, could be made into something positive.
For the third year in a row, OSU lost in the first round, this time a 69-53 loss to Southern Illinois.
But unlike last year, when Sutton said his players looked like they would have rather been on Spring Break after their first-round loss to Marist, Sutton said he was content with their effort in the 16-point loss to the Missouri Valley team.
"I thought we played hard,” Sutton said. "We just missed shots.”
Point guard Byron Eaton echoed his sentiment.
"We was ready to play the game,” Eaton said. "We missed a lot of inside shots… We had a lot of shots we wasn't able to collect on. We was definitely ready. We just didn't hit shots when we were open.”
SIU coach Chris Lowery declined to offer his opinion on OSU's preparedness.
"That's not my team so I can't answer that,” Lowery said. "All I can say is my guys were ready to play. We wanted to play again. We took the NIT very serious. There was letdown on selection Sunday, but we got them back in. We played really hard.”
OSU shot just 35 percent from the floor and 16 percent from 3-point range. Junior Terrel Harris led the Cowboys with 20 points and freshman James Anderson had 13. In his final game in an OSU uniform Marcus Dove scored five points.
The Salukis were 51 percent from the floor and 54 percent from 3.
"I thought they played really well,” Sutton said. "We knew they were a terrific defensive team. Tonight they played extremely well at the defensive end and the offensive end.”
OSU never led, and was down 20 points in the final minutes despite the Salukis being without their starting point guard.
SIU committed 18 turnovers – and OSU had 11 steals – as the Salukis handled the ball by committee without injured point guard Bryan Mullins. But ball security aside, SIU outplayed OSU as the combination of poor rebounding and ice-cold shooting did the Cowboys in.
Southern Illinois outrebounded OSU 39-21.
OSU tied the score on an Anderson 3-pointer – the Cowboys' first of the game – with 17 minutes to play.
It was the first time since the score was 3-3 that OSU wasn't trailing. But SIU responded promptly, with Matt Shaw draining a 3 to start a 7-0 run. OSU would not pull any closer than three points the rest of the way.
