Redhawks pursue first road victory at Tennessee Tech

~ The Redhawks say they built confidence in Thursday's loss to Tennessee State.

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- Southeast Missouri State isn't into moral victories, so there were understandably no happy faces following Thursday's 75-72 loss at Tennessee State.

But the Redhawks did acknowledge they were encouraged by taking the team picked to finish second in the Ohio Valley Conference down to the wire on its home court.

The Redhawks (3-6, 1-1 OVC) hope the confidence they gained Thursday carries over tonight when they close out their two-game conference road swing with a 7:30 p.m. tipoff at Tennessee Tech (3-4, 0-2), which has surprisingly dropped its first two league contests.

"To play a really good team down to the wire ... it was hard to lose, but we'll definitely take confidence from it," senior guard Terrick Willoughby said. "We're getting better."

Said freshman guard Marcus Rhodes, who led Southeast with a career-high 17 points Thursday and has 31 points in his last two games: "It was a disappointing loss, but I think we can build off this kind of game."

Southeast first-year coach Scott Edgar agreed after the Redhawks nearly posted their second straight comeback victory in OVC play.

Five days earlier, the Redhawks rallied from a 14-point second-half deficit at home to beat Tennessee-Martin in their league opener.

Thursday, the Redhawks trailed Tennessee State by 11 points at halftime and never caught up, but they pulled within two points late and had the ball twice in the final 40 seconds down by three.

"There were a tremendous amount of positives in the game," Edgar said. "We are taking strides."

The Redhawks will no doubt need to continue taking strides tonight when they face Tennessee Tech, which finished third in the OVC last year and was picked third in this year's preseason poll. But Tech already has suffered a pair of upset losses to start 0-2 in the league for the first time since the 2002-03 campaign.

Saturday's 77-70 loss to Austin Peay perhaps wasn't all that surprising since it came on the road. But Thursday's 74-69 setback to an Eastern Illinois team that finished ninth in the OVC last year was fairly stunning, especially since it came at the Eblen Center, where the Eagles are notoriously difficult to beat.

"They are a very talented basketball team, and I'm sure they will be upset after starting out conference play with two losses," Edgar said. "The idea on the road is to try and steal one. We almost stole one [Thursday]. It would be great if we could steal one [tonight]."

Southeast will try and slow down arguably the OVC's top backcourt -- junior guard Anthony Fisher and senior guard Belton Rivers.

Fisher is the reigning OVC player of the week after he scored 55 points in two games last week, including a career-high 35 points at Austin Peay.

Fisher, who hit 11 of 17 3-pointers last week, is second in the OVC in 3-point percentage at 47.6. He has made 20 of 42.

A preseason first-team all-OVC selection, Fisher is tied for first in the league in scoring with an average of 19.9 points per game. He led the Eagles last year with a 12.9 average.

Rivers is fourth in the OVC with 16.7 points per game. The preseason second-team all-conference pick was the Eagles' second-leading scorer a year ago with a 12-point average.

Another dangerous Tech player is 6-foot-7, 230-pound junior forward Amadi McKenzie, who is averaging 13.4 points and an OVC-leading 9.1 rebounds. He also leads the league in field-goal shooting at 65.4 percent.

The Eagles lead the conference in scoring (81.3 ppg), but they also are allowing the most points in the conference (79.9 ppg).