Salukis Heading to Vegas

Editor: The following is part of a press release from siusalukis.com.

The Continental Tire Las Vegas Holiday Invitational is pleased to announce the tournament field for this year’s event, to be held November 22-23, 2018 at the beautiful Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. Joining Southern Illinois in the stellar field are Nevada, Tulsa, and UMass.

Southern Illinois returns all five starters and its top-four leading scorers from last year’s 20-win team, led by first-team All-District guard Armon Fletcher (14.1 ppg). Sean Lloyd Jr. (12.1 ppg) and Kavion Pippen (12.1 ppg) are two of Southern’s six seniors in 2018-19, and both earned postseason awards from the Missouri Valley Conference last year. Eric McGill and Thik Bol will both return to the Salukis after missing last season with injuries. Bol blocked an MVC-leading 76 shots in 2016-17.

The Salukis also return Marcus Bartley and Aaron Cook, who tied for the team lead with 90 assists last year. Cook was named to the MVC’s Most Improved Team after averaging 9.8 points per game as a sophomore. Southern Illinois returns 83 percent of its scoring, 77 percent of its rebounding, and 79 percent of its assists from the 2017-18 team that won 20 games and finished second in the MVC, the best conference finish for the program since 2006-07.

FS1 presents coverage of four 2018 Continental Tire Las Vegas Holiday Invitational games played at Orleans Arena, televising two opening-round games on Thursday, Nov. 22, and the championship and consolation games on Friday, Nov. 23.

Each team will play four games in the Invitational – the first two at on-campus sites.