Banquet signals beginning of OVC tournament for Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team

If Southeast Missouri State freshman guard Corneisha Henderson was exhausted when she arrived at the Show Me Center for a 6 a.m. practice Monday, she didn't show it.

Henderson came in clapping her hands and told her teammates she hadn't been able to sleep the night before because of her excitement that the team was going to the Ohio Valley Conference tournament, according to senior forward Connor King.

"I think that kind of is how we all feel, she's just doing a really good job of exuding it. We're so excited," King said. "Everybody's like, 'What's it like? What do we wear to the banquet? What are we going to do? What's practicing going to be like? Do we watch [the other] games or do we not?' No one really knows. But at the end of the day, as [freshman guard] Adrianna [Murphy] always puts on her Snapchat story, it's a business trip and we're there for one reason and that's to win and advance. I think that everybody is kind of laser focused on that -- at least we're trying to be, we're going to get there. We're excited and it's like, 'Oh, it's all new,' but at the same time at the end of the day it's just a road trip to play a basketball game."

The Redhawks road trip -- their first trip to the OVC tournament since 2009 -- began Tuesday night with the conference awards banquet.

Southeast junior guard Bri Mitchell, who's averaging a team-best 14.9 points and 3.9 assists per game in conference, was named second-team All-OVC.

SIU Edwardsville, the Redhawks' opponent Thursday, had two players win awards. Senior guard Shronda Butts was named OVC Player of the Year while senior guard CoCo Moore shared Defensive Player of the Year honors with Belmont sophomore center Sally McCabe.

Belmont's Darby Maggard was selected Freshman of the Year while UT Martin coach Kevin McMillan was tabbed Coach of the Year.

The tournament gets underway at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville today with a noon game between regular-season champion and top-seed UT Martin and No. 8 Murray State.

No. 2 Belmont faces No. 7 Tennessee State, the defending tournament champion, at 2 p.m. today.

No. 4 Eastern Kentucky and No. 5 Austin Peay play at noon Thursday, and then the No. 6 Redhawks face No. 3 SIU Edwardsville at 2 p.m.

"Top eight teams go and it's never a guarantee that you're going at the beginning of the season, so I want us to enjoy that, I want us to be excited about the fact that we accomplished that goal," Southeast coach Rekha Patterson said. "The next thing is I want us to realize what we are playing for. You are playing for a chance to go to the NCAA tournament, to see your name on Selection Monday, and you've got to win three games to do it. We don't have to worry about Game 3. Our only focus has to be on Game 1, and we just go out there and play our best -- play extremely hard, extremely tough and together."

Patterson knows what it's like to go to the NCAA tournament and had planned to wear her national championship ring from when she was on the staff at Baylor in 2012 to Monday's practice as motivation.

"I sort of kind of forgot that," Patterson said, "because I was just thinking about the practice plan and what we've got to do and how much fun this is going to be."

During the practice, Patterson told her players the four things she feels like a team needs to do to win a conference tournament.

The first was defense.

"I truly believe that wins championships," Patterson said.

The Redhawks rank seventh in the OVC, allowing conference foes to score an average of 70.2 points per game. They're also seventh in field-goal defense, with OVC teams shooting 40.4 percent against them.

The second item on the list was rebounding -- on both ends of the court. Southeast's tied for second in the league averaging 43.1 rebounds per game in conference and allowed opponents and average of 35.4, the third fewest, for a +7.8 rebounding margin.

The third thing on the list was taking care of the basketball, which has been a problem area for the Redhawks. They average a league-worst 17.6 turnovers per game in conference action.

Finally, she said getting to the free-throw line and making free throws would be key. Southeast attempted the fourth-most free throws in conference (322) and shot 71.1 percent from the foul line. The Cougars of SIUE attempted the most (359) and shoot at a 72.4 percent clip.

"I think they've got a little bit of a business approach to it, like they want to know what the plan is, they want to know what they have to do to execute it and what we have to do to win the game," Patterson said. "I think they're going to go out there and just lay it out there on the line."

Southeast lost in both meetings with SIUE with the Cougars winning 80-73 on Jan. 20 and 89-75 a week ago.

The Redhawks trailed by as many as 29 points in the latest meeting. They committed 22 turnovers and the Cougars shot 46.3 percent from the field and 54.5 percent from beyond the arc. Guard Shronda Butts led SIUE with 26 points, while Donshel Beck added 13 and Gwen Adams and CoCo Moore finished with 11 apiece.

"We talked about our lack of toughness and our lack of effort in that game and that that's something that we control, so there's not a lot that we have to do to remind the girls of how they play or who they are," Patterson said.

SIUE (17-12, 12-4 OVC) closed out the regular season with a 66-56 victory at last-place Eastern Illinois.

The Redhawks (15-14, 8-8 OVC) sustained a 74-71 setback at Austin Peay in its regular-season finale.

"It's kind of more of a game about toughness and heart and who wants it," King said. "We obviously have to scout them and prepare for them, but it's not someone we haven't played in three months or even six weeks. We know what they do, we know who's in what roles, so it's not so much about them as it is us."