ISU guard Paris Lee hopes to lead the Redbirds to a season-high third straight win Wednesday night. (Photo courtesy goRedbirds.com)
By Bryan Bloodworth
NORMAL – For the first time in Dan Muller’s coaching career at Illinois State, the third-year coach believes his team has enough depth to overcome injuries.
That will be tested beginning Wednesday when the Redbirds play host to Tennessee-Martin in only their fourth home game of the season at 7 p.m. at Redbird Arena. The Redbirds are 5-3 while Tennessee-Martin of the Ohio Valley Conference is 6-2.
Junior transfer forward DeVaughn Akoon-Purcell will definitely be out from four to six weeks with a broken right hand, while senior guard Bobby Hunter could miss the game because of concussion-like symptoms. Meanwhile, junior transfer forward Will Ransom is currently serving a day-to-day team suspension and his availability is up in the air.
“When somebody goes down, everybody else needs to step up,” said Muller. “We have plenty of very good players, who are capable and ready to step up and make plays on game night. We couldn’t have withstood these injuries other years, but this year we’re in position to be able to do that.
“Any time people get experience or playing time because one of your main guys goes down it helps them. It gets them in the fire and helps them to get comfortable.We have enough depth. We’ll still be able to play eight or nine guys easily. That’s what most teams play anyway. Some guys will just play a little more. Some guys will have to score a little more, rebound a little more, but we’ve got enough. I like where the team is at.”
The Redbirds will be facing a Middle Tennessee team that has won six of its last seven games, marking the best start since the 2002-03 campaign. The Skyhawks, who have won five of their seven road games, suffered losses at Nebraska (75-64) and Marquette (79-63).
Middle Tennessee’s latest win came Monday with an 81-78 overtime victory at Illinois-Chicago as senior guard Deville Smith scored a career-high 26 points with seven assists, six rebounds, three steals and five blocked shots.
The Skyhawks are one of the few teams in the country with all five starters averaging in double figures, led by 6-foot-6 junior forward Twymond Howard’s 14.4 average. He also averages six rebounds per game.
“They don’t go real deep as far as how many guys they play, but they’re balanced,” added Muller. “Their offensive numbers are very good. They have rebounded the heck out of the ball so far (averaging 35.5 per game).”
First-year coach Heath Schroyer inherited three starters from last year’s 8-23 squad.
For ISU, the Redbirds will be making their first appearance at home since Dec. 2 to start a string of four of five games at home and a run of four games in eight days.
“It will be nice to be back in Redbird Arena,” Muller concluded. “We have to protect our home court. We have to do a lot of things better than we have at home since the season started. We’ve got to put a full game together at home.”
Coverage of the game begins at 6 o'clock with the pregame show on WJBC 1230 AM and 93.7 Nash ICON.
Bryan Bloodworth can be reached at [email protected]
