After a week break, Illinois traveled to Carbondale, where it fell 66-51 against Southern Illinois Sunday afternoon. 

Saluki’s Makenzie Silvey led the scoring with 19 points followed close behind by teammate Gabby Walker notching 17 points. 

For the Illini, Adalia McKenzie was the only one to get double figures, getting 14 points with fellow freshman Jayla Oden scoring eight points. 

Illinois started it off early, going up 4-0 with buckets from McKenzie and Aaliyah Nye. However, the rest of the first quarter was all SIU as it went on an 18-4 run to end the first 10 minutes. 

The Illini struggled to rebound, force turnovers and nail their shots, which led to them scoring just a mere eight points in the first quarter.

In the second quarter, SIU continued to dominate in all areas of the court. Silvey, who was hard to contain on the shot, had already notched double digits with 11, and she had no signs of stopping. 

For the Illini, McKenzie and Oden led the way for the next 10 minutes total a combined 12 points. At the 1:47 mark, Oden notched four points as she hit a three and then was fouled putting her at the line for one. 

Going into the half, the Illini saw a bright spot with McKenzie driving to the basket and getting jumpers on her left side. Illinois just needed to get everyone McKenzie’s level in order for a comeback to happen. 

After the first 20 minutes, Illinois had only scored 22 points, falling 15 behind SIU who were at 37. 

In the second half, the Illini finally started to get in some consistent scoring, but it was nearly all from off the bench. 

Solape Amusan hit a three in both quarters to get her up to six points, Sara Anastasieska notched three points in the fourth, Lyric Robins and De’Myla Brown all contributed from the bench. 

Despite some low offensive drive in the third quarter from SIU, a time out got the Saluki’s back on track to continue scoring and dominating the court. 

The last quarter was intense due to Illinois fighting for the final drive to get some more points on the board, which worked as it outscored SIU 14-11. 

However, the last push couldn’t fix the errors of turnovers, poor passes, not rebounding and blocking in the paint in the last three quarters to find themselves within single digits of SIU. 

By the final buzzer, the Saluki’s had dominated the stat sheet including 43 rebounds over Illini’s 25 and only forced 16, while Illinois totaled 22. 

Illinois just have two days of recovery and bouncing back to do before the Braggin’ Rights game against Missouri on Wednesday. 

@AngelleCortes

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