Nutt assembles daunting schedule for inaugural year

~ The Redhawks will host 14 games at the Show Me Center.

Dickey Nutt laughed when asked how difficult it was putting together his first schedule as Southeast Missouri State's men's basketball coach.

"It's been a long, long time since I was able to put together a schedule so quickly and easily," said Nutt, hired a little more than three months ago to rebuild Southeast's floundering program. "The phone rings off the hook on a daily basis, people wanting to play. That's not a good sign.

"I say that with a chuckle, but I hope in the future it will be very difficult to finish the schedule. That means your team is getting a lot tougher."

Southeast officially released the Redhawks' 2009-10 schedule Monday. It features 30 regular-season games -- 14 at the Show Me Center -- and two home exhibition contests.

As previously announced, Southeast will have home games against Southern Illinois Carbondale and Arkansas State, along with contests at Saint Louis and Memphis.

Other nonconference home games will be against Eastern Michigan, Southern Illinois Edwardsville and NAIA Williams Baptist.

Southeast also will visit nonleague foe Northern Illinois and a BracketBuster opponent to be determined while competing in an exempt tournament at Illinois State that features games against the host squad, St. Bonaventure and Norfolk State.

That's in addition to the 18-game Ohio Valley Conference schedule.

"It's going to be a very challenging schedule, no question about that, but we think it's a good schedule," Nutt said.

Nutt takes over a team that went 3-27 overall, 0-18 in the OVC and finished the season with 19 straight losses that represents the nation's longest current losing streak among Division I squads.

Because of that, Nutt knows the Redhawks are not ready to tackle such a demanding schedule. But he believes it's the right thing for the program at this time.

"You try to schedule according to your ability and experience. We know experience is not something we'll have a lot of," said Nutt, who has just four returning players, none of whom averaged more than 7.2 points per game.

"But I believe the best way to provide for our fans and supporters is to play these kind of teams. Right now I think the best thing for our program is to try and recapture our fan support and to generate serious, serious interest.

"I know our fans want to see good basketball and quality opponents. Hopefully we'll be able to provide for that year in and year out."

The Redhawks open the regular season Nov. 14 at Saint Louis, followed by the home opener Nov. 18 against Arkansas State, where Nutt spent 13 seasons before taking over Southeast's program.

Nutt said he hopes fans will be patient during the Redhawks' rebuilding process.

"Right now we're not as good as we want to be and it's not going to happen overnight," he said. "I'm the first to tell you I don't have all the answers. But we're going to work and bring in quality people to make this the type of basketball program our fans want and deserve."