Women's Basketball hosts Kentucky Wesleyan for exhibition opener

CARBONDALE, Ill. – The Southern Illinois University women's basketball team plays its first of two exhibition contests on Saturday, as the Salukis tangle with NCAA DII foe Kentucky Wesleyan in their exhibition opener. Tipoff inside SIU Arena is set for 2 p.m.

Promotions
It's Halloween inside the SIU Arena tomorrow! Wear a costume and get into the game free of charge, as well as trick or treat around the SIU Arena concourse.

Additional Media
Saluki play-by-play announcer Connor Onion sat down with head coach Cindy Stein, as well as Preseason All-MVC selection Kylie Giebelhausen. Take a listen on Saluki radio:
Coach Stein
Kylie Giebelhausen

Game Notes
Scouting Kentucky Wesleyan
The Kentucky Wesleyan Panthers, a NCAA Division II team under the direction of co-head coaches Nicole and Caleb Nieman, are coming off a strong 2016-17 season in which they went 19-8, including an 11-game win streak following a season opening loss to Drury. Kentucky Wesleyan made its fourth-straight Great Midwest Athletic Conference (GMAC) tournament appearance, losing to Davis and Elkins in the quarterfinals. The Panthers have an active streak of seven-straight seasons with at least 17 wins. Kentucky Wesleyan lost four of its top-five scorers from a year ago, including its two top-scorers in Brittany Wells (16.0/ppg) and Jennifer Walker-Crawford (12.0). Shayla Wright is the Panthers top returner, as she averaged 8.6 points and 2.8 rebounds per game last season, and she is one of four upperclassmen on Kentucky Wesleyan's 12-person roster.

Last season
The Salukis finished the 2016-17 season with a 16-15 overall record and a 10-8 mark in Missouri Valley Conference play. SIU posted a winning record for the third-straight season, the longest such streak for the Salukis in 20 years. Southern also made its second-straight postseason appearance in the Women's Basketball Invitational (WBI), which marked SIU's eighth all-time postseason appearance.

62 Shy of 1,000
Senior guard Kylie Giebelhausen returns to a lead a young Saluki squad that will feature three freshmen, six sophomores, two juniors and two seniors. Giebelhausen finished the season ranked within the top-10 of the Missouri Valley Conference in six statistical categories en route to earning All-MVC First Team honors. The East Peoria, Ill. native begins the season 62 points shy of becoming the 25th Saluki to score 1,000 career points.

Getting it done in the classroom
SIU was named to the Women's Basketball Coaches Association Academic Top 25 Team Honor Roll for the 2015-16 season. SIU earned the 22nd-best combined grade point average in NCAA Division I women's basketball. It marked the fourth time since the 2001-02 season that Southern has garnered a spot on the WBCA Academic Top-25 list, and the first time they have done so since the 2007-08 season.

Picked to finish 4th
The Salukis were picked to finish fourth in the Missouri Valley Conference preseason poll. Defending MVC champion Drake was projected to finish first, followed by Missouri State. Northern Iowa, SIU and Indiana State rounded out the top-five. It marks the third-straight season that SIU has been picked fourth in the annual poll, and the first time since the 1995-98 seasons that Southern has been picked in the top-four in three-consecutive seasons.

Giebelhausen named Preseason All-MVC
Kylie Giebelhausen was one of five selected to the Preseason All-MVC team. She was joined on the Preseason All-MVC team by the Ellie Howell of Northern Iowa, Sammie Bachrodt and Becca Hittner of Drake, and Liza Fruendt was selected as the league's preseason Player of the Year.

Consecutive games started streak
Giebelhausen has started in 92 straight games entering her senior season. She has started every game since the third game of her freshman season, SIU's 82-75 win over Memphis on Nov. 26, 2014.

5 minutes from 3000
Staying with Giebelhausen, she begins her senior season five minutes shy of 3,000 for her career. The East Peoria, Ill. native will become just the 11th Saluki in recorded history to play 3,000-plus minutes, and needs to play 289 minutes this season to pass Petra Jackson for fifth on SIU's all-time minutes played list. Last season, Rishonda Napier passed Cartaesha Macklin for the most minutes played in school history, and she finished her career with 4,138 minutes played.

Next win is 700

The Salukis next win (in regular season play) will be the 700th in the program's recorded history.

Talented Freshmen Class

SIU's talented 2017 class makes its much anticipated exhibition debut against Kentucky Wesleyan. Freshmen Makenzie Silvey, Criste'on Waters, Rachel Pudlowski and Abby Brockmeyer all experienced an immense amount of success during their prep careers.

Silvey led the Edwardsville Tigers to a 32-1 record during her senior campaign, with the Tigers lone loss coming against Geneva in the IHSA Class 4A state title game. She was selected to the IHSA Class 3A All-State First-Team for her efforts, and it marked the third time she earned inclusion on an All-State team. Silvey averaged 15.8 points and 3.5 assists as a senior, and she finished her high school career with over 1,500 points.

Waters, Silvey's teammate at Edwardsville, scored 10.7 points and grabbed 6.9 rebounds per contest as a senior for the Tigers' state runner-up squad. Waters finished her career at Edwardsville with over 1,100 career points and more than 750 career rebounds.

Pudlowski was a four-sport athlete at Fort Zumwalt H.S. The 5-11 forward excelled in softball, soccer and track in addition to basketball. She too earned All-State honors as a senior, and she finished her high school academic career ranked No. 9 out of her class of 306.

Brockmeyer, who was recently named the State-Journal Register's Girls Basketball Player of the Year, closed out her high school basketball career in style, averaging an area-leading 25.1 points points and 16.5 rebounds a game. She finished her career with 2,362 points and 1,510 rebounds.

Calendar

Upcoming Events