COLUMN: Early-season struggles taking toll on Southeast men's basketball team

Moments after dropping a 73-60 contest to Loyola Marymount on Saturday afternoon, Southeast Missouri State men's basketball coach Rick Ray sat down for his postgame conference and immediately hit the nail on the head.

"It's really weird when you look at the stats," Ray said. "It seems like [LMU] made 20 3s and shot 50 percent."

His point was Loyola Marymount didn't; that, statistically, there wasn't a ton separating the two teams. But to anyone watching, at no point in the second half did it feel like the Redhawks' game to win. Such is life when you're not playing great basketball and start the season -- and the Ray era -- at 0-5. Even when you hang, you can't seem to come up with an answer.

Whenever it made a defensive stop, Southeast couldn't hit the ocean from the beach. And when SEMO sunk a shot or two, it went down on the other end and gave up another -- oftentimes from 3-point range. There was no rhythm, no positive momentum and no identity.

On a day when the Redhawks kept it close enough to keep hope alive, they played a good chunk of the game without Antonius Cleveland -- who clearly provided the best offensive threat and finished with 17 points and 6 rebounds -- because his knee got banged up. He was limited to 20 minutes on the floor; he possibly could have been a difference maker if he got another 10 minutes, and a difference maker is something the team could desperately use right now.

There's a lot going wrong for SEMO in the early part of the season, but much of it is self-inflicted, whether it's the long scoring droughts, inconsistencies on defense or turnovers.

"I say taking care of the ball [is the key]," Cleveland said, "but mostly sticking together. It's only five games in."

Those are true statements, but it's impossible not to hear the frustration and disappointment in the players' voices, and we're only two weeks into the season. They talk about sticking together, but that will be Ray's biggest challenge because losing takes its toll. It's not that the struggles are surprising, because everyone knew the program had some building to do. The biggest hurdle likely won't be figuring out the motion offense the head coach wants to use, or whether the team is better off in a zone or man-to-man-defense. It will be making sure the players are in the right mental state when those things eventually fall into place.

A look at the schedule makes it hard to be optimistic. Where are the wins for Southeast? Probably not against Southern Illinois, Memphis, Bowling Green or Ole Miss. Maybe against a Northern Kentucky team which has only found victory against a Division II team. Maybe against Division II Harris-Stowe. That's the realistic view. The squad may be lucky to carry two or three wins into conference play.

So far, Ray, too, wants to remain realistic. He points to the constant lineup changes due to injury or suspension and believes that once there's a little continuity, it will be easier for guys to figure out their roles. He refused to say the current results are insignificant, but made it clear that they won't matter much in the long run.

That's Ray's job right now -- to make sure these losses don't matter; that a young team can see through the dark cloud that only it can lift.

Ray admitted that dark cloud is something he is cognizant of, and he talked about how important it is to avoid finger pointing when things aren't going right. He was critical of his team's mental approach at times, saying his players too often approach small deficits as if they are giant, uncrossable chasms.

Five games into the season, nothing is uncrossable, especially when the Redhawks have barely stepped onto the bridge that Ray hopes to build here. But I've seen losing turn plans of concrete and steel into rope and plywood, and those things leave everyone hanging on for their lives at a slight breeze.

If Ray can get this thing turned around, this year or next, it won't be in spite of the losses, but in spite of the losing.

Josh Mlot is the sports editor of the Southeast Missourian and semoball.com.