Georgia Left Stinging by Southern Illinois

It was dog eat dog, Bulldogs vs. Salukis, a vicious court-yard scrap that left one school in the Sweet 16 and the other yapping.

Trailing by 19 points in the first half, No. 11 Southern Illinois staged a frenetic rally and then held off No. 3 Georgia, 77-75, in a second-round East Regional game before a crowd of 21,525 at the United Center.

Southern Illinois (28-7) advances to face Connecticut Friday in an East Regional semifinal game at Syracuse, N.Y.

This was not your typical good-game, handshake finish. It ended with Georgia Coach Jim Harrick chasing referee Mike Wood out of the building after a controversial call helped decide the outcome.

Harrick’s bone to pick?

Georgia trailed, 73-71, when Southern Illinois forward Jermaine Dearman rebounded his own miss in the closing seconds and started to dribble out the clock.

Georgia (22-10) needed to foul to stop the clock and Jonas Hayes aggressively wrapped his arms around Rolan Roberts, a 42% foul shooter, with 14.3 seconds left.

Woods, though, ruled the foul was intentional, giving Roberts two shots and Southern Illinois possession of the ball.

Harrick went ballistic.

Roberts made only one of two shots, but Southern Illinois retained possession, forcing Georgia to foul again on the in-bounds play.

Brad Korn made both foul shots to give the Salukis a five-point lead.

Harrick was still hot about the call afterward.

“That was a big call, a huge call in this game, let me tell you that,” Harrick said.

Harrick complained that he has seen that play “15 times this year” in which the intentional foul was not called.

“If they’re going to call it, they ought to call it all the time,” Harrick said.

Harrick did pause to say that he thought Southern Illinois “played brilliantly.”

Dearman led the Salukis with 26 points and eight rebounds, while Jarvis Hayes had 26 points and 11 rebounds to lead Georgia.

It was a pretty good weekend for Saluki Coach Bruce Weber.

Friday, he defeated Coach Bob Knight, winner of three national titles, then notched a victory against Harrick, winner of one.

Sunday’s win marked the first time the Salukis have won a second-round game in the NCAA tournament.

Weber, in his fourth year at Southern Illinois after a long career as a Purdue assistant, boldly challenged his team to make an NCAA run to the Sweet 16.

“It probably sounded crazy last spring,” Weber said of the goal, “and now the Salukis are going to be there.”

Southern Illinois, at No. 11, is the second-lowest seeded team remaining in the tournament but proved beyond doubt its tournament worthiness with tenacious victories against Texas Tech and Georgia.

After Friday’s game, Knight said no team had played better defense against his team this year. Harrick sort of downplayed Southern Illinois’ prowess at Saturday’s news conference, which caught the attention of a few Salukis.

Roberts, a transfer from Virginia Tech, recalled similar talk when he was a Hokie and Harrick coached at Rhode Island.

“He seemed kind of cocky back then,” Roberts said of Harrick. “I knew he wasn’t going to respect us.”

Harrick was fit to be tied over the controversial call, kicking a chair at one point. But he probably should have kicked himself after his Bulldogs squandered a huge first-half lead. Georgia led, 30-11, with 8:44 left and then went to sleep at the switch and on the switches.

Sure enough, Southern Illinois, an at-large selection from the Missouri Valley Conference, whittled the lead down to 38-35 at the half, tied the score at 41-41 on Dearman’s follow shot with 17:46 left and didn’t trail again after freshman guard Darren Brooks’ left-handed scoop shot put the Salukis up, 50-48, with 14:14 left.