After Wednesday's loss to Toledo, Ball State sophomore guard Jesse Berry said his teammates weren't having fun playing on the court.
In the days leading up to Saturday's game against Southern Illinois, Berry said the team preached team unity and enjoying the game of basketball together again.
While Saturday's 71-62 win over Southern Illinois wasn't the dominating performance Ball State was looking for, it was, at least, positive.
"Coach Taylor came in the locker room and clapped it up--first time in a long time he's done that," Berry said. "Everybody was talking in the locker room, having fun. Usually it gets silent, no one is talking. This time everybody was talking about the good plays and having fun about it."
It showed on the court as well as the team ended its seven-game losing streak.
The Cardinals fed off each others' confidence and shot themselves to a 37-22 halftime lead behind four first-half 3-pointers.
Ball State (13-12, 4-8 Mid-American Conference) finished 10-of-20 from behind the arc, the team's best shooting percentage in 11 games.
"We're being really unselfish right now," Davis said. "That's why you see our shooters starting to make shots. In games past, we were still making the extra pass, we just weren't making the shots."
Davis and Berry led the team with three 3-pointers a piece and 19 and 13 points, respectively.
After the break, it seemed Ball State got used to making shots.
The Cardinals switched to a match up zone to slow down the Salukis' senior forward Mamadou Seck, but it left second chance opportunities open.
Seck traded in his mid-range jumper for easy put backs in the lane as he and the rest of his teammates hit the offensive glass. Seck finished with a game-high 26 points and 11 rebounds and Southern Illinois won the rebounding battle 38-32 to get back in the game.
"Southern is one of the best rebounding teams in the [Missouri] Valley," Taylor said. "They're aggressive attacking the boards and we haven't played it [the match-up zone] much this year. They did a good job of crashing hard and when they took shots we weren't checking out on the weak side like we needed to."
With 15:47 left in the game, Southern Illinois took advantage of that and went on a 10-1 run to pull within single digits.
The Salukis cut the lead to five points with 3:33 remaining before the Cardinals' freshman forward Aaron Adeoye got an and-one put back to stop their momentum.
Ball State didn't shoot well from the free throw line (19-of-33) for the game, but sophomore guard Tyrae Robinson went 5-of-7 over the final 1:19 to close out the game.
While Taylor did seem to savor the win during the post game press conference, he was quick to get his team focused for its next game, at Western Michigan, in four days.
"This is obviously what we've been waiting for for quite a while," Taylor said. "Great to see our guys come out and play so well. We just need to keep doing the things we did well tonight--being unselfish and playing with great energy--moving forward [towards Western Michigan]."
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