Southeast battles, but falls to Vandy

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Southeast Missouri State University's Indians' are nothing if not resilient.

The Indians, 19-point underdogs to Southeastern Conference member Vanderbilt Wednesday night, fought and battled and made the Commodores sweat out a much closer-than-anticipated 76-71 victory at Memorial Gym.

"It's all about winning and losing but we had a really good effort and I was really proud of the guys," said Southeast coach Gary Garner. "With this young team, we've talked about fighting and competing, really playing hard. If you do that, then some of the other things will come. And we really fought tonight."

Southeast battled back from an 18-point second-half deficit to pull within three points in the final minute, but the Indians could not keep from falling to 0-5 as they continued the program's worst start since the 1950-51 season. The Commodores improved to 6-2.

"Give Southeast Missouri State a lot of credit," said Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings. "Coach Garner does an excellent job with their program. I know they've had some problems this year, but I knew they would come in here and really play hard."

The Indians received a strong performance from freshman guard Brett Hale, who scored a career-high 22 points. Hale, forced to play out of position at the point, has struggled with his shooting so far this season, but he hit nine of 14 shots Wednesday, including three of six from 3-point range.

"I thought Brett played really well," said Garner. "He's been struggling shooting the ball but he shot it well tonight and hopefully this will help get him going because he's going to be a really good player for us."

Junior swingman Demetrius King also had a solid game with 17 points on 7-for-11 shooting. King also led the Indians in rebounding with nine.

"Demetrius really had a good game for us," Garner said.

Derek Winans, a redshirt freshman guard who is the Indians' leading scorer on the season at 19.3 points per game, was held scoreless in the first half but he finished with 11 points although he hit just three of 10 shots.

Vanderbilt got 18 points from both Chuck Moore and Matt Freije.

Southeast hung tough the entire first half. Although the Indians held only one lead all night -- at 2-0 as Daniel Weaver scored a layup in the game's opening minute -- they never fell behind by more than seven points over the opening 20 minutes.

Vanderbilt's biggest advantage was 18-11 midway through the first half. But the Indians, milking the shot clock on virtually every possession, battled back and pulled to within 21-19 on walkon guard Kevin Roberts' 15-footer with 4:32 left before the intermission.

The Indians fell behind 28-23, but Hale's runner in the lane that barely beat the shot clock with 11 seconds left allowed Southeast to enter the locker room down just 28-25.

"We're not the kind of team that can get into an up and down, high scoring game so we hope to keep the score as low as possible," Garner said. "At halftime I thought we were in pretty good shape. I thought the game was going the way we like it."

Hale's 3-pointer to start the second half pulled the Indians into a 28-28 tie, but Vanderbilt then appeared to take control. The Commodores went on 22-7 run -- getting three 3-pointers from Brendan Plavich -- to open up a 50-35 lead with just under 13 minutes remaining. It later became 58-40 before the Indians stormed back. A 3-pointer by Winans with 2:19 left pulled the Indians to within 66-62. And a 3-pointer by King with 29 seconds remaining made it 70-67.

Southeast once more got within three points as Winans hit one of two free throws with 18 seconds to play, making it 71-68.

Moore hit three of four free throws to put Vanderbilt ahead 74-68, but the Indians had one more charge left as a Hale 3-pointer with 1.9 seconds remaining made it 74-71. But Moore's two foul shots with 0.8 seconds left clinched the Vanderbilt victory.

"We just have to keep working hard and fighting and hopefully some good things will start happening for us," said Garner.