Lapses lead Southeast Missouri State men's basketball to loss at UT Martin

MARTIN, Tenn. -- Following his team's road loss to UT Martin on Thursday night, Southeast Missouri State men's basketball coach Rick Ray jotted down a couple of numbers on the board.

The numbers were five and 40, and didn't indicate any stat.

They signified what Ray thinks his team needs to have success, which is five players that give their best effort for the entire game.

Southeast (5-20 overall, 2-10 Ohio Valley Conference) found one group that showed potential to do that and trimmed a 25-point deficit down to single digits in the second half, but it was too big of a hole to climb out of as the Skyhawks held on for a 77-64 victory at the Elam Center.

"We've just got to find five guys that's willing to compete for 40 minutes and if we can do those things I think that we can be competitive and beat anybody in the league, but we can't have those long lapses where we're not competitive," Ray said. "I give that one group a great deal of credit. Â… For them to go and cut that to eight points, and that was our goal -- we wanted to get it underneath 10, single digits there by the 4-minute media timeout."

UTM (14-12, 6-5 OVC) took its largest lead of the contest on a three-point play by Javier Martinez with 11 minutes, 19 seconds remaining in the game. His basket-and-foul pushed the Skyhawks' advantage to 60-35 as part of a 25-8 run to start the second half.

UTM was held scoreless over the next 4:52 as the Redhawks rattled off 14 unanswered points to cut it to 11.

The Skyhawks pushed their lead back to 14 but Southeast used a 7-1 spurt capped by senior guard Isiah Jones' third 3-pointer to make it 66-58 at the media timeout with 3:35 remaining.

UTM scored four quick points -- a Fatodd Lewis layup and a steal and basket for Kedar Edwards -- to push the lead back to double figures out of the timeout. A triple by Jacob Mobley in the closing seconds of the shot clock with 1:04 left pushed the margin to 15 and sealed the Skyhawks' fourth win in a row.

"The biggest thing is that we struggled against their 2-2-1 [defense], and not the fact that we were turning the ball over all the time -- we just were never able to get into a rhythm on the offensive end," Ray said. "The only way that you can not go against a 2-2-1 press is to stop them, so when we got stops on the defensive end we were able to transition and have some flow from our transition offense into our zone offense.

"I thought that was the biggest key for us, like, getting back into the game was getting stops, and then our stops letting us get out into transition and attacking. We did a great job of putting pressure on them and getting to the free-throw line -- obviously we've got to do a much better job making free throws, but to go on the road and have 32 free-throw attempts, I mean, that says a lot about you being in attack mode."

Southeast finished 17 of 32 from the charity stripe. The Redhawks shot 40.4 percent from the field and were 5 of 16 from beyond the arc.

Southeast scored the first seven points of the game, which was its largest lead.

UTM took its first lead at 12-11 on a 3-pointer by forward Myles Taylor and held a 19-15 lead when Southeast junior guard Jamaal Calvin drained a corner 3 that cut it to one. Seconds after the shot fell, Calvin was issued a technical foul, which was the second technical for the Redhawks after Jones had received one after a UTM traveling violation.

The Skyhawks made both free throws to make it 21-18.

"Our guys shouldn't say anything, but I thought the things that were said were things that happen every night in college basketball, so there's going to be technicals throughout the world in college basketball for guys expressing their feelings, saying something. I thought nothing was directed toward anybody."

Southeast scored the next six points to go up 24-21, but the Redhawks were outscored 14-3 over the final five minutes, including an Alex Anderson 3 with 30 seconds left, and trailed 35-27 at the break.

"I think we got off to a nice start but they got a couple shots and a technical and they took the lead," Southeast junior guard Antonius Cleveland said, "and then we let it get larger than what it should be the second half."

Southeast shot 35.5 percent in the first half and had 10 first-half turnovers, which UTM scored 11 points off. The Redhawks finished with 16 turnovers.

"I just thought that we had so many unnecessary, unforced turnovers against, like, that zone and against the 2-2-1," Ray said. "I just thought that we did a poor job of being in attack mode on that and then when we had our sets -- I thought early we ran our sets we really got downhill and ball screen action, but I thought, like, towards the last 10 minutes of the first half our ball screens all we did was dribble the arc and didn't get any sort of paint attack."

Four Skyhawks scored in double figures: Twymond Howard (19), Mobley (15), Anderson (14) and Edwards (10). Edwards had 21 boards, including seven offensive. UTM out-rebounded Southeast 44-35 and had 12 second-chance points.

"He's nonstop. He's energy," Jones said of Edwards. "He flies around everywhere. If you take your eye off him at any minute he's going to get to the board. Certain guys have a knack for the ball. It seems like he's a magnet. Wherever the ball comes off, the ball's going to go right to him, so if you don't block him out he will get the rebound. That's what's so tough about guarding him, because he's going to crash every single time. You can't take no plays off on defense."

Jones had 19 points to lead Southeast while Cleveland had 16 and Calvin had 12.

The Redhawks remain on the road and face Murray State on Saturday night. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. from the CFSB Center in Murray, Kentucky.

"I would just say we're not locked in as a unit," Cleveland said of the team's lapses. "Sometimes it's two or three guys but not all five like it should be, everybody not being on the same page."