ISU football receives at-large bid to FCS playoffs, hoops dominates Coastal Carolina

NORMAL, Ill. (WMBD) – Sunday was a busy one on the Illinois State University campus, despite Thanksgiving being just days away.

The Redbird football team received an at-large bid to the FCS playoffs for the second straight year, the first time in a decade the program has made the postseason in consecutive campaigns.

They finished 8-4 overall, and had some tension during the selection show after losing to Southern Illinois at home 37-7 just one day earlier.

The bracket was revealed with Redbirds headed to Southeastern Louisiana, who hails out of the Southland Conference.

Team leaders are ready to battle in the playoffs again, but said Saturday’s performance can’t be replicated.

No, it’s awesome. It’s always awesome to see your team up there. It’s just another opportunity for us to play football together as a team, so it’s really exciting for us and back to work. I mean, it’s a frustrating loss yesterday, but it’s just time to move on. That season’s over….and it’s a whole new season. It’s one game at a time. So it’s kind of just looking forward to the next game.

Tye Niekamp

And we’ve been working on this forever, ever, ever since I came here. I wanted to win and that’s what we’re doing and we’re going to force them to keep giving us more games, but you just got to keep earning it. But yeah, it’s a great feeling. Today will be the only day that we live in yesterday. So today we’ll fix the mistakes. Coaches will watch it over. The players will take responsibility for things that needed to be taken responsibility for. But at the same time, tomorrow we’re moving on

Wenkers Wright

Meanwhile, ISU basketball dominated Coastal Carolina in a 52-point thrashing, 94-42 at CEFCU Arena. The Coastal Carolina coach was ejected on back-to-back technical fouls just over seven minutes into the game.

ISU had five separate players reach double figures, including Ty’Reek Coleman and Ty Pence both putting up 16 points. Coleman was 4-5 from beyond the arc and the Redbirds shot nearly 45% from three.

The game was never really in doubt. The Redbirds never trailed and put up a blistering 55 points in the first half.

“Our ball screen coverage was much better. I think our discipline on the ball, just one-on-one defense, was much better. A lot to build on today. Continue getting better.”

Ryan Pedon

ISU is headed to Florida for a few games this holiday week.

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