 "Photo: Lela Norem~ Daily Egyptian")
The Missy Tiber era began with a win.
The SIU women’s basketball team won its exhibition game Sunday against Quincy 67-59, marking the first win as a Saluki for head coach Missy Tiber.
Senior guard Christine Presswood said it was hard to prepare for the first game of the season.
“It’s tiring. No matter what you do in the offseason, no matter how hard you train, it’s never going to get you ready for a game until you’re actually in the game,” Presswood said. “It was tough, but I like it.”
Presswood had 13 points in the game.
SIU ended the first half of the game ahead by only three points at 39-36. Quincy shot 30.8 percent from three-point range in the half.
Tiber said a focus of the game was to limit Quincy’s ability to shoot three-pointers.
“Our mindset coming into the game was to guard the three-point line,” Tiber said. “I wasn’t happy with that at halftime. We tightened up in the second half.”
In the second half of the game, Quincy shot 6.7 percent from three-point range, making one out of 15 attempts.
A first half highlight for the Salukis was the play of junior Eboni Crayton. Crayton scored a game-high 15 points in the first half.
Crayton said she did not expect to get out to such a hot start.
“I came out, tried to play as hard as I could, get all the easy baskets I could and just hustle,” Crayton said.
Crayton did not score a basket in the second half.
Tiber said it was disappointing Crayton did not score a basket in the second half.
“I was telling them Eboni had 15 points at halftime, she ended the game with 15 points. That is not acceptable,” Tiber said. “That is something we have to do a better job as a coaching staff and a team to try to get the ball in her hands a little more.”
SIU outscored Quincy 28-23 in the second half and led by as much as 15 points.
In the second half, the Salukis shot 40.7 percent from the floor. Quincy shot 19.5 percent in that same frame, but had 14 more shots than the Salukis did and forced 17 turnovers.
Tiber said the Salukis have to work on minimizing shot attempts.
“They missed a lot of shots, the biggest thing I look at after a game is shot attempts from the other team and ours,” Tiber said. “They outshot us by 12 and that is not acceptable; that comes from the 25 turnovers.”
Tiber said she was also disappointed with the final score, which she attributed to the turnover problem.
“Sixty-seven points isn’t enough for us so we have to get better taking care of the ball so we can get a lot more points,” Tiber said.
Tiber said the effort was OK for the first exhibition game of the season.
“For a first time effort and these kids trying to figure out what this is all about, I think they did OK,” Tiber said. “We got a long way to go.”
The next exhibition game for SIU is against Washington (Mo.) at 6:05 p.m. Saturday.
Derek Robbins can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 269.
