Riding an unbeaten streak to start the season the Florida Gators (5-0) will get a challenge at home Friday when they welcome in the Southern Illinois Salukis (2-2), a team expected to do some damage in the Missouri Valley Conference this season.
Southern Illinois is a mid-major program with some proud history, though they had fallen into a state of purgatory over the last decade where they never bottomed out and became uncompetitive, but couldn’t compete at the top of the Missouri Valley which has turned into functionally the toughest single-bid league in the country. Despite head coach Bryan Mullins, who played at Southern Illinois and was a fan favorite, having a decent record in his five years in Carbondale–the program made a difficult decision to fire him this past offseason.