Offense stalls in Southeast men's basketball team's loss to Eastern Kentucky

The Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team's biggest struggle is putting the ball in the basket, and that continued Saturday night at the Show Me Center.

The Redhawks were held scoreless for five and a half of the final six minutes of the contest, which allowed the Colonels to pull away for a 68-55 victory.

"That's the difference in the game, and I thought that particular area -- that was it," Southeast coach Dickey Nutt said. "A 13-0 run where we just couldn't [score]."

After senior guard Jarekious Bradley knocked down a pair of free throws with 5 minutes, 57 seconds remaining to cut EKU's lead to 55-50, Southeast was outscored 13-0.

The Redhawks scored just five points the remainder of the game -- all in the final 25 seconds -- on three free throws and a tip-in in the closing seconds.

"They were just shutting down a lot of the stuff on the catch, so we were trying to beat them over the top or off the dribble-drive and getting the extra pass," Southeast senior forward Aaron Adeoye said. "We were getting open looks and not knocking down shots, but it just happens some nights."

The Redhawks, which were held to 24 points in the second half, shot 32.7 percent in the game (17 of 52) and made just 7 of 27 field goals in the second half (25.9 percent).

Nutt was particularly concerned with his team's post production.

Adeoye led Southeast with 12 points, seven rebounds, three blocks and a steal. Senior forward Nino Johnson, who played just 12 minutes in the contest, had two blocks to break Bud Eley's career block record with 157, but had just two points and two rebounds. Senior forward Josh Langford was 1 for 6, connecting on 1 3-point attempt.

"I think the biggest evaluation of our team right now is we're really not getting anything out of our interior play," Nutt said. "We really don't have that presence. We talk to Nino every day and whether it be Josh or whether it be Aaron, but we've got to look at some other guys. We got to look at some other guys that maybe give us a spurt every once in a while because right now we're not consistently getting it done. I'm certainly not blaming anybody. I'm not blaming my inside guys. I just feel like that's the first evaluation that comes to my mind is that if they defend us so well on the perimeter because our inside play is just not as consistent as it needs to be. We're going to work hard at that."

Southeast led by as many as five points in the first half at 15-10 with 12:13 to go before the break.

But the Colonels answered with a 15-4 run, during which the Redhawks were 1 for 8 and missed a pair of free throws, to take a six-point lead with 7:03 left in the first.

The Redhawks led again by three with 3:33 in the half, but once the Colonels took a lead on a layup by senior guard Corey Walden with two minutes left they never caught back up.

EKU sent Southeast to the break with a 37-31 deficit after Jonathan Hood rebounded a missed jumper between two Redhawks defenders and scored as time expired.

Southeast pulled within two points in the first 30 seconds of the second half, but never got any closer, pulling within three once with 12:48 left.

Junior guard Isiah Jones and Bradley each finished with 10 points -- Jones had two in the secodn half and Bradley had six.

Sophomore guard Antonius Cleveland had eight points and did not score in the second half.

"Antonius sprained his ankle [in the first half]. He couldn't really get going in the second half, but I thought he had a pretty good first half," Nutt said of Cleveland. "Isiah Jones was all over the floor tonight. I thought he did some good things. Again, we faced a good team. No excuses. We should be just as good, and we are just as good, but we're not playing. We're certainly not playing at the level that we want to play, and it's very disappointing."

The Colonels shot 42.9 percent from the floor and made 10 of 23 3-point attempts. They were 16 of 18 from the free-throw line.

Walden paced EKU with 23 points, connecting on all 10 of his free throws, while Senior forward Eric Stutz finished with 18.

"I will say this now -- we faced a very good team tonight," Nutt said. "I thought they were very good. I think Corey Walden -- he's as good as anybody in this league. He's very, very good. Stutz is just as good, and he's a big 6-9, 6-10 guy that makes them good. And they've got some very good personnel around them, so they're good. They're good. I'm not concerned about them. I'm more concerned about us."

Southeast (7-10, 1-3 OVC) travels to Jacksonville, Alabama, on Wednesday to face Jacksonville State (8-9, 1-2 OVC).

"Just be tough in everything we do, like be tough mentally, be tough physically, just be tough all around," Adeoye said of what has to improve. "Just make sure that when we're in the crunch, make sure we know what we're doing, know the situations, everything. Because now we have no room for error. If we want to get a good seed, good place we have to do everything right, and that just comes down to toughness. You know, being able to be tired and fight through it. If we down, man, keep going. If we get hit, get back up. Just toughness. That's what's going to sum up the rest of the season, for real. Honestly."