By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

It was a weekend that, at the beginning of the season, looked to be a big one.

Western Illinois’ men’s basketball team was playing host to Southern Indiana on Thursday, then defending Ohio Valley Conference tournament champion Morehead State on Saturday.

Western Illinois had been picked to finish second in the OVC’s preseason poll, coming off a 21-win season in which the program reached the conference tournament semifinals. This past weekend would be coming at a crucial time in the conference race for the Leathernecks, who were going to be closing the season with three of their last four games on the road.

Western Illinois swept the weekend, defeating Southern Indiana 87-62 before rallying in the second half to beat Morehead State 72-67.

It was a big weekend for the Leathernecks, but not in the way they had imagined.

Thursday’s win snapped a 10-game losing streak for Western Illinois, and even though the weekend did a lot for the Leathernecks’ mood, it only kept them on the brink of being eliminated from a chance to play in the OVC tournament.

The Leathernecks, 10-17 overall, are 4-12 in OVC play, tied with Southern Indiana and Eastern Illinois for ninth place, but the conference only takes the top eight teams for the tournament, and Western Illinois is four games out with four to play.

“We dug ourselves such a hole,” Western Illinois coach Chad Boudreau said.

But just winning was a relief for the Leathernecks. They went more than a month without a win — the losing streak started with an 85-83 overtime loss to UT-Martin on January 9 — and just to feel what it was like to get a victory was important.

“Winning changes everything,” guard Marko Maletic said. “You lose a game, everybody’s down. You can always pick a play, ‘Oh, we lost this play, or that play.’ But when you win, you don’t hear that. It’s definitely big to win.”

Boudreau has been coaching long enough to know what happens when streaks grow.

“When you have a long winning streak, there’s pressure to keep the streak going,” he said. “When you have a long losing streak, there’s pressure to break the streak. It becomes self-fulfilling. You get in tight games, a team makes a run on you, and you just shut down.”

Three games in the losing streak were decided by four points or less — the overtime loss to UT-Martin, a 51-47 loss at Morehead State, and a 69-65 home loss to SIUE. The Leathernecks had chances in all of them.

Saturday’s game, though, wasn’t about to get away. The Leathernecks were down 54-42 with 9 ½ minutes to play before rallying. They held Morehead State to just three field goals the rest of the game, and made the big plays they had missed in those three losses.

Maletic had a nine-point run of his own that put the Leathernecks into the lead. He had a four-point play with 5:01 left, throwing his hands up in relief as his first 3-point shot of the game went in as he was fouled.

His next 3-pointer was set up by Julius Rollins, who was driving the lane for what looked to be an easy layup. But Rollins passed the ball to Maletic in the left corner, who hit the shot that tied the game at 59, a play that Boudreau called “extremely unselfish.”

“I thought when Juju made that pass and we tied it at 59, it felt like, OK, yeah, we’re winning this game,” Boudreau said. “Like you could feel the energy was right and the positivity was going in the right direction.”

It is the time of year when, in a conference like the OVC where the tournament winner is going to be the only one going to the NCAA tournament, a team wants to be playing its best basketball, and it felt like this weekend was the Leathernecks’ best.

Ryan Myers, a second-team all-conference pick last season, scored 28 points. Trey Deveaux, who had 17 points and 11 rebounds, had his seventh consecutive game scoring in double figures after having just one double-figure game the entire season. Maletic scored 13 of his 14 points in the second half, becoming the program’s single-season leader in 3-pointers with 87.

Boudreau went down the list of everyone who had made big plays in those closing minutes.

“Juju, Ryan, everybody,” he said. “Rod (Payne) was rebounding and boxing out, and Trey was rebounding. Just defensively, they did a really good job. And then they would come back the other way. They shared the ball down the stretch. Guys made big plays.”

It was the type of game Boudreau and the Leathernecks had been wanting all season. But they realize the situation they still face.

“We’re just trying to fight for wins every game and just keep getting better,” Myers said. “Control what we control, continue to win games and try to keep our season alive, so we can have a postseason.”

“We’ve got to keep winning games and see what happens,” Boudreau said. “But, yeah, we’ve dug ourselves a pretty big hole.”

Photo: WIU guard Ryan Myers (right) had 28 points in Saturday’s win over Morehead State. (Photo courtesy of WIU Athletic Communications)