Southern's Slide Continues

The official photo of Saluki failure is here.

This is what happens when you have too much free time on your hands and get nostalgic about your college years.  And while this picture wasn't taken last night, it sums up how I feel about the Southern Illinois University men's basketball team.

It is hard to feel sorry for student-athletes who get the four most important years of their lives paid for because they are athletic enough to put bat on ball, ball in hoop or ball in the hands of someone who can out run a jackrabbit.

But if there is anyone I feel sorry for, it might be Tony Freeman.

Freeman is the lone senior on the Salukis and is playing like it, scoring a team-high 15 points in the team's 57-55 loss against Bradley.

The Iowa transfer is averaging 13 points per game and is shooting 43.9 percent from 3-point range and 46.5 percent from the field overall.  Those are the kinds of numbers you expect out of a player who is aware that his days as on campus are numbered.

Then there's this quote in today's Daily Egyptian:

"We just have to clean up stuff prior to the tip," Freeman said. "Guards dunking and just goofing off, we just have to be cut in when everybody steps on the floor."

It's almost a shame that as a whole, SIU has yet to follow his lead.

It seems like ages ago when Southern was 9-2 and 2-0 in conference, but the Salukis have dropped four out of their last five games.  And some of the losses have been inexcusible and reflect Freeman's statement.

The team lost to a Drake team that had fallen off the earth prior to beating SIU, and since has resurrected its season.  The Creighton game should have been a win had the Dawgs been able to find a few more defensive stops.  You couldn't expect to beat Northern Iowa, but to lay an absolute egg at the once impenetrable fortress known as SIU Arena is inexcusable.

But right now, losing to Bradley takes the cake, and not just because the loss is still fresh in the minds of Saluki fans.

Jim Les and his Rod Blagojevich-inspired hair-do had been winless at the House Ashraf Amaya Built, and Bradley had not won in Carbondale in nine (!) years.

And if you thought things could not get worse, they just might.

Gene Teague, the 6-foot-9-inch, 290-pound freshman center that had averaged 13 points and 7.5 boards after averaging a hair over two points and two rebounds per game in his first 14 appearances, was saddled to the bench because of academic issues, according to The Southern Illinoisan.

As Les Winkler wrote in his Saluki sidebar today, "Teague's fate is in the hands of the NCAA."

Which would be cool if John Calipari was the head coach of the Salukis, because we know the NCAA never catches Calipari squads doing anything wrong when he is at the helm.

With what could be the first NCAA Investigation of Saluki basketball lurking in the darkness, I would not be surprised if the Lowery-to-DePaul chatter intensified in the coming weeks.  Especially from those who have been calling for a change at the top.

But, then again, we could be overreacting.  It could be something as minor as a transcript issue (i.e. missing grade, dropped class, incomplete, etc.) or something larger.  SIU has done a good job recently in graduating its basketball players, so a step backward in that regard would be a step backward for the entire university as a whole.

Things will not get any easier for the maroon and white as it hosts Illinois State, which has been dominant over the Salukis over the last few years.

My biggest fear is Osiris Eldridge going off for 30 points in a rout that leaves Saluki fans no choice but to boo its own team off its home court.

And in a night that featured my two favorite teams (SIU and UNC) losing to teams they should beat, DePaul beat Marquette last night.

Go figure.