Sangamon Sun

Tennessee State Runs Past SIUE Saturday

 Jr. Clay scored 40 points to lead Tennessee State to a 100-85 win over SIUE men's basketball Saturday at the Gentry Center.

SIUE has now dropped three consecutive games and fell to 8-8 in the Ohio Valley Conference. The Cougars dropped to 17-12 overall. Tennessee State is now 9-7 in the OVC and 17-12 overall.

The opening five minutes were close and SIUE trailed 12-11 following a DeeJuan Pruitt layup with five minutes gone in the game. Tennessee State proceeded on a 15-0 run from that point to extend the lead to 27-11 with 11 minutes left in the half.

"We didn't pick up in transition like we were supposed to," SIUE Head Coach Brian Barone said of the run. "Offensively, the ball stuck on one side of the court. We did a really good job moving the ball side to side at the beginning of the game. We hit two or three three-pointers that were step-in threes."

SIUE trimmed the lead back to six after a layup by Damarco Minor with 6:25 left made it 34-26. Shamar Wright scored at the hoop with 3:47 to play before halftime to make it 42-35, but SIUE settled for just two free throws the remainder of the period and a 15-2 run put Tennessee State up 57-37 at halftime.  

"Transition defense and our rotation on the weak side with rim protection wasn't there like it needed to be," Barone said. "That's two games in a row that we haven't guarded the ball up top. Some of it was simple drives. Some of it was ball screen coverage."

Tennessee State extended the lead to 22 in the second half and SIUE never got closer than 11 points the rest of the way.

Clay scored 14 of his 40 points in the second half. He was 15-23 from the field for the game.

"You can't let someone see the hoop as clearly as we did today," Barone said.

Shamar Wright led SIUE with a season-high 20 points. He was 6-11 overall and 6-9 at the free throw line. Wright moved up to No. 11 on SIUE's all-time scoring list. He now has 1,060 points. He is 22 points away from tying for the 10th spot.

Ray'Sean Taylor scored 17 points and was 9-9 at the free throw line. Minor scored 15 points and Pruitt scored 11.

SIUE shot just 38 percent (23-61) overall but knocked down a season-best 31 free throws in 35 attempts to finish at 89 percent. 

Tennessee State connected on 58 percent of its shots overall (39-59). The Tigers were 9-21 beyond the arc and 21-27 at the free throw line. SIUE outrebounded Tennessee State 35-33.

SIUE returns home to for a two-game home stand to close out the regular season beginning Thursday against Little Rock.

"We didn't do what we needed to do the last three games that doesn't mean that this team won't continue to be resilient starting tomorrow." Barone said. "We're excited to have another opportunity Thursday to be in front of a great community, our great fans."

The Cougars will finish the regular season Saturday at home against Southeast Missouri Saturday.

"I told the guys that we can still do what we set out to do. It's just a different path right now," Barone said. "Unfortunately, the last three games have done what we needed to defensively.

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