FINAL SCORE: Southern Illinois 82, Western Kentucky 67

RECORDS: WKU — 0-1 Southern Illinois — 1-0

PLAY-BY-PLAY HIGHLIGHTS:
First Half — after SIU opened the scoring, WKU hit it's first 3 shots of the season to go up 7-1 (at 18:01) and led 9-3 at 16:42 ..... but SIU caught up at 9-9 (at 16:42) and it was a 19-19 game at 10:42 ..... but, the Hilltoppers went scoreless for more than 4 minutes (from 11:07 to 6:56) and SIU capitalized, going on a 7-0 run and taking the lead for good on a jumper by freshman Kent Williams at 10:10 ..... SIU led 34-23 with 90 seconds left in the half, but WKU got 7 quick points -- a FG by Filip Videnov at 1:16, a jumper by Lee Lampley at 0:46 and a long three by Derek Robinson with just a couple of ticks left ..... WKU shot a sharp 54.5% (12-22) in the half, but committed those 15 TOs (to SIU's 6) ..... WKU 7-1 center Chris Marcus lead all rebounders with 7.

Second Half — SIU took total control of the game in the early minutes of the half, outscoring the Hilltoppers 20-6 in the first 7:09 of the period (lef by backup frontliner Joshua Cross (who had 8 of his 11 points on the night in that stretch), going up 54-36 on a FT by Williams at 12:51 ..... WKU then got a jumper from Derek Robinson (at 12:40) and a pair of FTs from Lampley (at 11:47) to cut it to 54-40, but that was as close as it got ..... SIU then scored 10 of the next 12 (5 by Derrick Tilmon) to take it's longest lead of the night (22 -- 64-42) on a jumper by Brandon Mells at 9:30 ...... SIU also led by 22 at 67-45 and 73-51 ..... WKU trailed 78-57 with less than 2:30 left and then scored 10 of the last 14 points in the game to close it out at 82-67.

COACHES' QUOTES:
WKU Head Coach Dennis Felton — "(about SIU taking charge early in 2nd half) They made a couple of shots, gained some confidence and got on a roll. But, even in the first half, we were lucky to stay in the game. We just had too many turnovers (15 in 1st half) although we did shoot the ball well ..... We wanted to get the ball into the paint more, but their pressure made us play farther away from the basket than we wanted to."

Next Game - The Hilltoppers open the home portion of their '99-00 schedule Tuesday (Nov. 23), hosting defending Missouri Valley Conference champion Evansville at 7 pm (CST) in Diddle Arena ..... The Salukis go on the road to face Ball State Wednesday (Nov. 24) at 6 pm (CST).

NOTES - This game is the season opener for both teams ..... game is nightcap of an unusual football-basketball combo in Carbondale -- the Hilltopper football team lost 52-14 to SIU in football this afternoon ..... SIU Head Coach Bruce Weber is a former WKU assistant coach (1979-80) ..... Lee Lampley equalled his career-high scoring total (17) .....