Drake Bulldogs (5-11 0-4) @ Southern Illinois Salukis (9-4 2-2)

A few words on tonight's game. These aren't the same Salukis that flew around back in the mid 'aughts. Those teams were ridiculously strong and athletic. In addition, to call them defensively superior would be an understatement. The year they lost to Kansas in the Elite 8 (2007), they posted an adjusted defensive efficiency of 86.6 for the season, an absolutely insane level of efficiency from their defense.

But those times are gone. Over the past two years, Chris Lowery's team has essentially become an average defensive team. Their adjusted defensive efficiency has just been below average over the past year and a half (99.7 in '09, 99.4 this year). Opponents are shooting an EFG% of 50.0%, well below the glory days when they allowed mid 40%'s.

They never were barnburners offensively, but they were efficient. With the addition of Tony Freeman and the development of Kevin Dillard and Carlton Fay, they now have some potent options to score the basketball. Consider:

• Tony Freeman is shooting 45.5% from beyond the arc, and three other players have 16 made three pointers (Dillard, Fay, Justin Bocot)
• Six players shoot 50.0%+ EFG in significant minutes
• They play a faster tempo than average. While this doesn't necessarily indicate strong offense, it nonetheless illustrates how they've really changed as a team.

Make no mistake that they're going to give us a tough test. But one item we can really exploit is their tendency to foul at a high rate. I haven't seen them play in a while, so I don't know if it's just that they now get whistled when refs used to let them play, or if they actually are just less disciplined than in the past. But they are among the worst teams in the NCAA in allowing opponents to get to the line.

Want an example? Anthony Booker commits an astounding 8.3 fouls/40 minutes. It almost seems as if he is trying to foul his way right back on the bench once he gets into the game.

Now, we've been a poor free throw shooting (and poor shooting) team as of late. We need that to change tonight. While I've said before that we really don't have a team of slashers, that doesn't mean we can't be aggressive and try to find ways to get to the line. But we need to be smart about it and not set up bogus plays like Frank Wiseler one on one against Tony Freeman.

All that said, I don't expect a win tonight, but I continue to expect improvement. We were really seeing it before the offensive hiatus that occurred within the past few weeks. But @ Creighton was a real step forward and I'm thinking that even though @ SIU sounds like a scary matchup for us, we keep taking steps. That said, I don't think we're quite there yet.

SIU 70, Drake 64

Coming soon -- I have fit a model to predict the probability of Josh Young breaking the scoring record. Results are looking pretty good, but there are a few i's to dot and t's to cross. More on that soon.