Southeast looks to even conference record on the road

~ The Redhawks will face Morehead State and Tennessee Tech during trip

The Southeast Missouri State men's basketball heads back on the road starting today for a two-game swing and a chance to pull its Ohio Valley Conference record to .500.

The Redhawks (9-8, 1-3) have the opportunity to pick up two wins with games against OVC East opponents Morehead State and Tennessee Tech.

Southeast faces Morehead at 6 p.m. today at the Ellis T. Johnson Arena in Morehead, Ky.

"They're going to press you for 40 minutes, and they're really going to try to hammer you on the boards," Southeast coach Dickey Nutt said. "Some of the things they do really good are our weaknesses, like breaking the press, handling the basketball against pressure and keeping people off the offensive rebounds. That's kind of been a weakness of ours, and that's something that we really have to pay attention to [today] and make sure that we can try to compete and win the rebounding and turnover war."

The Eagles (11-7, 2-1) lead the conference in turnovers forced, averaging 17.4 a game. They also lead the league in offensive rebounding with 15.6 boards a game.

Southeast averages an OVC-best 25.8 defensive rebounds a game, but Morehead is close behind with an average of 25.0.

The Redhawks will have to try to keep 6-foot-11 senior center Chad Posthumus off the boards. Posthumus is second in the nation with an average of 12.2 total rebounds and 5.0 offensive rebounds a game. He leads the OVC with 7.2 defensive rebounds a game. Southeast's Tyler Stone ranks second averaging 6.9.

In addition to limiting turnovers and MSU's offensive rebounds, Southeast's defense will need to be better.

"Defensively, our effort is really good," Nutt said. "We play hard -- we play extremely hard -- but sometimes we get out of sync because of our technique. We won't rely on our technique that we've been taught and we get out of position and people are scoring on us. Hopefully we can improve that tomorrow. We really have had a good week of practice, so we feel really good about our road trip coming up."

The Eagles have the third-highest scoring average in the OVC behind Southeast and Belmont with 78.7 points a game. The Redhawks have little trouble scoring, averaging a league-leading 83.9 points a game. Southeast opponents average 77.7 points, the second-highest allowed in the conference.

"We say this every day: Scoring is not our problem," Nutt said. "It's stopping people from scoring and getting in our break and transition. I think we're pretty good once we hit that transition, but we've got to make stops first."

MSU has three players averaging double figures: Angelo Warner with 17.3, Brent Arrington with 11.4 and Posthumus with 10.8.

"They've got some serious weapons that can really score the basketball," Nutt said. "We need to do a better job; obviously just team defense needs to be a lot better for us."

The Redhawks have two players averaging double figures in Stone and Jarekious Bradley with 18.1 and 21.7 points, respectively. Antonius Cleveland averages 9.8 points and Darrian Gray averages 9.1.

Nutt said it is likely Stone will be back in the starting lineup today, but it is a game-time decision. Stone, the OVC Preseason Player of the Year, has been out of the starting lineup for the last three games. He scored 27 points and collected nine rebounds off the bench in Southeast's 102-94 defeat of Tennessee State on Saturday.

"I think he really is starting to understand exactly what we want," Nutt said. "It made him a lot better player when he really paid attention to his shot selection and really made all of his plays around the basket within 15 feet and in. If a 3-point shot presents itself, maybe at the end of a shot clock or maybe in rhythm is different, but for him to jump up and take early shots in a possession, that was one of our biggest problems -- not the only problem, but that was one of our problems."

Southeast faces Tennessee Tech (10-9, 3-1) at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Eblen Center in Cookeville, Tenn.