Western Illinois Leathernecks prove too strong for St. Thomas in basketball
MACOMB — It was a much different game and outcome when the St. Thomas and Western Illinois men met inside Western Hall on Saturday.
On January 1, the Tommies dominated, winning 89–66, but on Saturday the Leathernecks exacted revenge, winning in convincing fashion, 81-52.
WIU used its muscle and might, pounding away at the smaller St. Thomas squad from the start and through the finish.
“We were able to get the ball inside and get good post looks, there’s no two ways about it, we had to get the ball inside and get easy scores,” WIU associate head coach Chad Boudreau said. "No disrespect to St. Thomas, but we had a huge size advantage today and we had to take advantage.
“In this era, we all get caught up in three-point shooting, spacing the floor, we want to do that too, but when we’re bigger, we have to take advantage and we did this time around.”
Western Illinois was also able to do the job against the St. Thomas shooters, holding UST to 18-56 (32.1 percent) from the floor and 7-32 (21.9) from three.
“Up there, it looked like they had six guys on the floor and we had four,” Boudreau said. “We did a better job this time working through, switching better, we did a better job switching on the perimeter. St. Thomas does a great job sharing the ball and we had to be better at switching.”
The win was a big one for the Leathernecks, who were coming off two frustrating losses to South Dakota and South Dakota State last week.
The losses saw WIU drop to the bottom third of the Summit League standings, but Saturday's victory helped bring Western back to the middle.
“It was a great feeling, we knew before the game, this was very important for us to get this and get going because the last couple weeks we lost some tough games we were planning to win,” Luka Barisic (17 points, 12 rebounds, three assists) said. “This was a good comeback.”
In total, WIU scored 48 points in the paint and whether it was Barisic and Tamell Pearson (10 points) on the block, or Trenton Massner (20 points), Colton Sandage (12 points) and Will Carius (12 points) attacking on the pass or dribble, the Leathernecks were getting to the bucket.
WIU had a fast start, getting off to a big lead.
The Leathernecks kept it rolling, leading 45-26 at the break.
The first-half surge was new for Western, which had been struggling with slow starts.
“We started good, we went into halftime up by almost 20,” Barisic said. “But Coach kept mentioning the game is still going on, we can not relax, we still had to respond in the second half too.”
Western was just as good defensively in the second half, allowing a matching 26 points after the break and forcing the Tommies to shoot a lower field goal percentage (33.3-30.8).
WIU was also productive on offense, shooting 56 percent from the field after the break and getting multiple players involved.
“We needed this win, our expectations are high,” Boudreau said. “We go out in the community and everyone is great, ‘you have 12 wins, that’s awesome,’ but that’s not what we’re trying to to.
“This time of year, you want to build momentum, we thought we had it with the two wins in North Dakota, then we come back here and lost two to the South Dakota teams. This is a big bounce back for us.”
This article originally appeared on The McDonough County Voice: Western Illinois Leathernecks prove too strong for St. Thomas
