Redhawks take down Harris-Stowe 94-66 in final non-conference test

Southeast Missouri State men's basketball coach Dickey Nutt had some concerns entering Sunday's contest against NAIA Harris-Stowe State University, and the way his team played in the first half proved that he had reason to be.

Luckily for Nutt's Redhawks, who were coming off a three-game losing streak and hosting a lower level opponent at the Show Me Center in their non-conference finale, a stronger second-half performance helped them pull away for a 94-66 win to enter Ohio Valley Conference play at 6-7.

"You don't really have to say a whole lot to your team [when you play SEC opponents]. But games like these are ones you always worry about, and that's why I particularly scheduled this game at this time because I knew we were coming off four or five very tough games," Nutt said. " *... But having this game, it played exactly the way I thought it would. We're sleepwalking. We're going through the motions. We don't respect them, we don't respect the opponent. We've played all these other teams, and done well, and then all of a sudden we've got a team that maybe is not at our level.

"The point I try to tell them everyday is that, 'Man, you just cannot disrespect the game. You can't disrespect levels. You can't disrespect. There are good coaches at every level. There are good players at every level. And you better wake up and play, and if you don't, get out of the way because I've got a lot of young guys that want to play.' I feel like our young guys are going to be the future to this Redhawk program and I told them at halftime, and I challenged them, 'Hey, you've got one minute. You've got one minute to show me that you're going to play with some effort and some passion, the way we know how to play. You're not going to come out and just kind of flip the ball around and think you can just get by with nonchalant play.' And I thought it was better. We came out and played. We came out and guarded a little bit better."

Southeast held just a 36-31 advantage at the break, and the 2-7 Hornets pulled within three points twice in the first five minutes of the second half, including at 41-38 on a 3-pointer by Trevor Roberts with 16 minutes, 53 seconds left.

Senior forward Aaron Adeoye answered with a layup for Southeast 10 seconds later to key an 11-0 run by the Redhawks to take a 49-38 lead with 15:17 remaining.

Harris-Stowe scored on its next possesion, but an Adeoye jumper put the Redhawks ahead by double figures for good.

The play of Adeoye and freshman guard Marcus Wallace was critical for Southeast's second-half surge.

Wallace, who played a career-high 27 minutes and scored 11 points, had two of his five steals and two assists during that stretch. He was 4 of 7 overall and 2 of 3 from behind the arc and finished with four assists and four rebounds.

"My role is just to come in and bring energy," Wallace said. "Just do what coach asks me to do and play the best I can, shoot when shots are open and getting other people the ball. He always talks about defense, all the time, so focused a lot on that today and tried to get us back because we weren't playing very good defense."

Adeoye finished with 16 points, all but two coming in the second half, on 6 of 6 shooting. He played only four minutes in the first half after the Redhawks got out to a slow start and believed his frustration from the first half improved his play.

"Honestly I was [angry]. I started the game, came out, went back in and probably didn't play well, so the second half I was just mad," Adeoye said. "I think I just came out and played with all the energy I had that I didn't use in the first half, and just tried to go as hard as I could and tried not to stop and tried not to get tired. I was just focused, determined, mostly."

It was the Redhawks' pressure defense that turned things around for them in the second half. They finished with 44 points off of the Hornets' 29 turnovers, and had 14 steals and seven blocks.

"He said some stuff I don't know if I can mention up here," Wallace said with a laugh of Nutt's halftime message. "He just mentioned to us that we've got to be tougher on defense, you know, get up in them. We let them get open 3s and we didn't really press up. We were just relaxing on defense instead of getting down like we should've, like we've been practicing."

Neither team led by more than six points in the first half, which was tied four times and had 10 lead changes.

Southeast was 13 of 32 (40.6 percent) from the field in the first half, and improved to 59.5 percent in the second half, including knocking down 5 of 10 3-point attempts.

The Redhawks also connected on 9 of 11 free-throw attempts in the second half after making just 9 of 17 in the first 20 minutes.

"What I told them at halftime is, 'You're not going to disrespect this game and play with a lack of effort,'" Nutt said. "It's one thing not making your shots, not making your free-throws -- and that calls for an ugly game -- but the one thing we really try to hang our hats on is great effort and great attitude. *... Attitude's great. It's the effort part that wasn't good enough for me."

The Redhawks begin conference play with a Nashville road swing against two-time defending regular season champion Belmont and Tennessee State on Thursday and Saturday.

"Only time will tell, but I do feel like we're prepared," Nutt said. "I feel like we have had a brutal non-conference schedule, but I think it's going to play dividends down the road. I don't think by no means that our guys will be intimidated going in and playing a team like Belmont because we were at Arkansas in front of 13,000, we were at Ole Miss, we were at Missouri. I mean, we played some very, very tough opponents. We know what time it is. I think our guys will be together, we'll be focused, we'll get our game plan in line and see if we can't slow down their shooters."