Morehead State drops Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team to 0-3 in OVC

MOREHEAD, Ky. -- The tone was set for the Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team just four minutes into Thursday night's road game against Morehead State.

The Redhawks scored the first basket of the game 41 seconds in and then didn't score again for the next 4 minutes, 15 seconds as they were stifled by the Eagles' defense.

Morehead ran away with a 96-69 victory at Johnson Arena to snap a four-game losing streak and pick up its first Ohio Valley Conference victory of the season.

"I just think they came out and played harder than us and out-toughed us," junior Jamaal Calvin said. "I really do think we got punked out today, honestly. They came out, had a lot of second-chance points -- they killed us on the boards -- and it just seems like we just gave up at some point."

After Southeast's initial lead to start the game, the Eagles scored 16 unanswered points and never trailed again.

Angus snapped the scoring drought with 15:04 left in the half. He scored 10 of the Redhawks' first 13 points and finished with 12.

"Coach told us that they were going to get out to a good start because that's like what they do, that's their MO," Angus said. "We knew they was going to get out to a good start and we'd just have to respond to it, but their good start just stayed."

Southeast got as close as eight points the remainder of the half after a pair of Calvin free throws cut it to 30-22 with 8:16 left in the half, but the Eagles used a 11-2 run, featuring back-to-back 3s by Brent Arrington, to take its largest lead of the half at 17.

The Redhawks answered with their own 7-0 spurt to pull within 10, but turned the ball over three times in the final two minutes. Morehead took a 46-31 lead into the break.

The Eagles hit their first four 3-point attempts of the game and made 6 of 9 in the first half.

"They came out and hit shots, and I think that, really, we started out like with low self-esteem," Calvin said. "Like, we started feeling bad for ourselves, and we knew that's what they did, so I think we just need to do a better job of, like, regrouping and coming out there and facing adversity when it does come and when they are hitting all their shots like that."

The Eagles' largest lead of the night came with two minutes left when they went up 37. Southeast scored the next 10 points of the game for the final score.

The Redhawks turned the ball over 19 times, resulting in 27 points for Morehead.

The Eagles also had 26 second-chance points on 15 offensive boards.

"You can't beat anybody when you don't take care of the basketball," Southeast coach Rick Ray said. "I knew our No. 1 concern coming into this was our ability to take care of the basketball and handle their pressure, and then the second biggest concern was their second-chance opportunities. If you look at the stats*...that's the game right there."

Southeast shot 37.9 percent from the floor for the game. The Redhawks made 6 of 17 3-point attempts. Senior guard Isiah Jones made 3 of 6 attempts and finished with 15 points. Antonius Cleveland added 13 points and seven rebounds, but had a season-high seven turnovers. Calvin and freshman forward Tony Anderson each had 10 points.

Southeast shot a season-high 82.6 percent from the free-throw line, knocking down 19 of 23 attempts.

"I think they forced us to play one-on-one basketball because we didn't reverse the basketball and fight for catches," Ray said. "It's not just on the guy that went one-on-one. It's on the people that left him on the island. We talked about, 'We can't leave somebody on the island because it's going to force them to go one-on-one.' We didn't fight for catches to get the ball, reverse it and get the ball moved around, so I think that was the huge problem was the fact that we didn't fight for catches."

Morehead shot a season-high 54.7 percent from the floor and 55.6 percent from beyond the arc. The Eagles knocked down 10 triples. Arrington knocked down a season-high four attempts from 3-point range, missing just once. He finished with 21 points to pace the Eagles.

DeJuan Marrero finished with 12 points, Corban Collins had 11 and Treshaad Williams and Miguel Dicent each scored 10.

"They're good shooters. We knew they were a good-shooting team," Ray said. "But that's why you can't give them those second-chance opportunities. They've got very good guards, they've got experienced guards. We knew they could shoot the basketball, but the end result was every time we gave them a second chance, it ended up with a 3 for them."

MSU improve to 7-7 and 1-1 in the OVC while Southeast fell to 2-13 and 0-3 in conference.

The Redhawks face Eastern Kentucky at 1 p.m. Saturday in Richmond, Kentucky.

"I think this is going to be a stepping stone," Calvin said. "We're going to have to go back and look at this where we did get punked out and take this [lesson] on through the rest of OVC play because a lot of other teams are going to come out and try to do that to us."