EDWARDSVILLE — The Southern Illinois University men's basketball team travels to DeKalb for a Wednesday night matchup with Northern Illinois.
Tip time is 7 p.m.
The Cougars (2-3) are seeking their first road win. A win would put SIUE at .500 for the first time after the start of a season since making the transition to Division I.
In its last game, SIUE came back from an eight-point halftime deficit to defeat Chicago State 71-57 on Saturday at Vadalabene Center. Jerome Jones led SIUE with 17 points. Michael Messer (12) and Maurice Wiltz (11) also scored in double figures.
In the win over Chicago State SIUE trailed 34-26 at half. It marked just the 11th time in 89 such games under coach Lennox Forrester that the Cougars have trailed at halftime of a game and gone on to win. SIUE did it three times last year.
Northern Illinois is a member of the Mid American Conference. The Huskies are 1-5 overall with their only win coming against Judson University, an NAIA program. NIU is coming off a Saturday loss at Dayton and has dropped three straight entering Wednesday night. Freshman Akeem Springs leads the Huskies in scoring at 10.3 points per game. Junior Aksel Bolin is the top rebounder at 5.2 boards per game.
This is only the third meeting all-time between SIUE and Northern Illinois. The Cougars edged the Huskies, 64-62, in last year's BracketBuster game in Edwardsville thanks to a buzzer-beating shot by Mark Yelovich. Prior to last year, the only other meeting came during the 1985-86 season.
The Cougars are 2-3 against Mid American Conference opponents under Forrester. Besides last year's victory over NIU, SIUE defeated Western Michigan Nov. 16, 2008. It was the program's first Division I victory. SIUE is 2-4 all-time against members of the MAC.
Jerome Jones leads the team in scoring with an average of 17.3 points per game. He scored 17 to lead the team Saturday against Chicago State. It was the third time this season and the 14th time in his career he has led the team in scoring. He scored a career-high 26 points against Western Illinois. His 10 made field goals set a new career mark. He turned in five 20-point games last season and was named to OVC's All-Newcomer team.
NOTES: Last season, Yelovich became the 14th player to reach the 1,000-point plateau at SIUE. He currently has 1,247 points and is fourth on the school's all-time scoring list. ... the Cougars have no freshmen on their roster this season, making them one of just six NCAA Division I schools that have no freshmen. That includes redshirt freshmen as well as true freshmen. The five other schools that do no have any freshmen are UAB, Ohio, Portland State, Savannah State, and Valparaiso.
