CARBONDALE - Kevin Dillard was Southern Illinois University's shortest starter against Indianapolis on Tuesday night, but wanted to challenge the trees at SIU Arena.

Unfortunately for the Greyhounds, they couldn't ever stay ahead of the 6-foot sophomore guard, as he turned a few quick steps into a career-high 10 assists. Dillard, last year's Missouri Valley Conference freshman of the year, added a team-high 16 points as the Salukis completed their two-game tune-up for UNLV with a 84-69 win.

SIU (2-0) takes on the Runnin' Rebels (1-0) on Saturday night in Las Vegas in the Salukis' first road game of the season.

"We talked about that before the game, that drive-and-kicks would be open and dump-downs to the bigs would be open," said Dillard, who started his 24th career game. "I just took what the defense gave me. I tried to get into the paint, and I just took my options."

Dillard set the tone for SIU in the opening six minutes. The former Illinois Mr. Basketball found Tony Freeman for a 3-pointer less than four minutes into the game to give the Salukis an 8-4 lead. About a minute later, he converted a floater in the lane that didn't touch anything but the net for a 10-6 advan-tage. At the 14:49 mark, he got around his defender on the right side of the lane and drew a foul on Devin Williams for the first of six free throws.

Dillard finished 5-of-8 from the field with a rebound, his first two turnovers of the season and a steal in 26 minutes. He missed two free throws.

Fellow second-year player Justin Bocot took advantage of a few of Dillard's assists, hitting 2-of-3 from 3-point range and scoring eight points. Tony Freeman, the Iowa transfer that hit double figures in his second straight game as a Saluki, added 11.

The Salukis had 20 assists, 16 turnovers and shot 54.9 percent from the floor (28-of-51).

"He can get by a lot of people," SIU coach Chris Lowery said. "We just got to keep the floor spread. He did a really good job of finding the open person. We probably passed up some shots, too. Carlton (Fay) passed up some shots. Justin passed up some shots, and whenever we do, we travel, we charge. This team can score the ball, so we have to take every open opportunity we get."

Fay, Anthony Booker and Nick Evans all added 11 points apiece against the Division II foes out of the Great Lakes Valley Conference.

UI (1-1) made 9-of-17 3-pointers to stay in the game, but scored only eight points the final 4:29. Low-ery said those kinds of droughts likely won't be at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas if the Salukis guard like they did Tuesday night.

SIU blocked four shots, with three of them from the Salukis' trees: Fay, Booker and 6-9 freshman center Gene Teague. DeWann Squires had the Greyhounds' only rejection.

"They got four guys into double figures. One of them played 12 minutes," Lowery said. "We can't al-ways focus on scoring, and I told those guys that they have way more freedom than any other team I've coached here because we have way more weapons, but with us playing this many people, we need to guard better."

todd.hefferman@thesouthern.com / 618-351-5087