CARBONDALE, Ill. — Saint Louis had to rally from a 13-point deficit in the first half, then hang on for dear life in the second, but in the end, the Billikens escaped Carbondale with a 76-67 victory over Southern Illinois.

“Nothing was easy tonight and [SIU] made it difficult for us,” coach Jim Crews said during his post-game interview with Bob Ramsey and Earl Austin Jr. on 101 ESPN. “I was impressed with how we kept hanging in there. We didn’t push the panic button. We had our pulse rates changed at certain times and in certain situations—which was good.”

Mike McCall Jr. led all-scorers with 19 points (matching a career-high) on seven of 18 shooting, including three of six from behind the arc. The senior guard pulled in a career-high nine rebounds with a pair of assists and steals.

Despite hitting just four of 10 shots from the field, senior Dwayne Evans knocked in five of six free throw attempts for 13 points, while Jake Barnett hit three treys as part of a 12-point performance.

“[Barnett] made some really big shots. I thought he had some good rhythm to his shot,” Crews said. “It’s funny, everyone thinks his reputation is as a shooter—and he is a shooter—but that’s never been the reason why he’s played for us the last two years. He’s always played because of the other things that he’s doing.

Desmar Jackson (18) and Marcus Fillyaw (17) led SIU with 18 and 17 points, respectively, with Jalen Pendleton chipping in 14 points off the bench.

“When we hit the wall I looked at my staff and said we need a spark, and both assistants said put Jalen in,” SIU coach Barry Hinson said. “When I put him in I just said play within yourself, but we need a spark.”

SLU appeared poised to blow the game open following a 3-pointer from McCall that pushed the score to 57-47 with 10:45 remaining. SIU refused to fold, however, firing back with an 8-1 run to pull within three heading into the second media timeout (SLU went over three minutes without a field goal).

The score sat at 62-59 after the two sides exchanged buckets following the timeout, but Verhines, who matched Evans’ back-to-back buckets with a pair of his own, deflected McCall’s shot attempt into the hands of Jackson who went coast-to-coast for the layup to make it a one- point game with 5:08 remaining. With the home team poised to retake the lead, SLU’s senior point guard, despite having his latest shot attempt blocked just second earlier, calmly navigated through the defense and knocked down an open jumper to stifle the Salukis’ momentum and push the visitor’s lead back to three points.

Despite just having his shot blocked and with the home team poised to retake the lead, SLU’s senior point guard calmly navigated through the defense and knocked down an open jumper to stifle the Salukis’ momentum.

Evans, another one of SLU’s key seniors, stepped up next, outscoring SIU’s Jackson 8-3 over the next three minutes to make it 72-64 with 1:25 remaining.

“As I told them after the game, I don’t know if we played particularly well… but nothing was easy. It was a struggle,” Crews explained. “The reason I’m really tickled about them is because it’s just a good character trait. Okay, so it’s not going our way. Nothing’s easy, but we just kept battling and battling and battling.”

The Salukis sliced the margin to five, but four free throws (two apiece) from Austin McBroom and McCall iced the hard-fought win for Saint Louis.

As a team, the Billikens hit 28 of 65 shots from the field, but were a woeful 7-for-22 from behind the arc (2-for-10 in the second half). They generated 11 points off of 11 Saluki turnovers and got 25 points from their bench. Rebounds were in SLU’s favor at 40-33.

Freshman Reggie Agbeko was the lone freshman to see action, knocking down both of his field goal attempts for four points over six minutes of playing time.

“When you play a zone, they’re going to shoot a lot of threes—they’ve been shooting 26 percent from the three on the year,” Hinson said. “Some of the long rebounds we didn’t chase down.”

A pair of free throws from Pendleton with five minutes left gave SIU its largest lead of the night at 32-19 with five minutes left in the first half, but Saint Louis responded with an 18-4 run to close the half. That offensive eruption featured three triples from Barnett and was capped off with a buzzer-beating jumper from McBroom that gave the visitors a 37-36 lead heading into halftime.

“The last five or six minutes, we quit giving them space,” We gave them too much space so they were going downhill at us and that’s tough to guard. They had multiple guys who are a little bit undersized and they knew where to go.”