Southeast men roll past EIU in first round of OVC basketball tournament

It hasn't been often this season that the Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team has been commended for its defensive efforts.

But defense -- along with Southeast's usual successful scoring -- led the sixth-seeded Redhawks to a 79-61 victory over No. 7 Eastern Illinois in the first round of the Ohio Valley Conference tournament Wednesday night at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville, Tenn.

"Defense was pretty good tonight," Southeast coach Dickey Nutt said. "It hasn't been any secret that we haven't been the best defensive team all year long, but as of late we're getting a little bit better. I thought we were very patient defensively tonight, and what that means in my mind is we did a good job of staying solid and not putting ourselves in a bad situation. I thought we did a decent job on that."

The Redhawks, who won their fifth game in a row to improve to 18-13, held EIU to 37.3 percent (22 of 59) in the game, and EIU coach Jay Spoonhour was quick to point out that Southeast's post defense kept them from scoring during the first half.

"We had it underneath the basket a bunch and ... we had shots that really could've been baskets that they just wiped away," Spoonhour said. "I mean, [Tyler] Stone got a couple of them and [Nino] Johnson got a couple, and that's what makes them tough. You run pretty good offense and you get it around the basket, and we've got guys that can score pretty well. Chris [Olivier] is good scoring it in there and so is Luke [Piotrowski] and they had layups that turned into really good defensive plays on their end."

In the first two minutes alone, after Southeast was trailing 4-3, Southeast's Stone and Johnson each came up with a blocked shot on the same possession and it led to an EIU shot-clock violation. They each finished with three blocks apiece.

Southeast took a 17-10 lead with 12 minutes, 9 seconds left in the first half but went cold on the offensive end. They didn't score for the next 5:03, and EIU was able to take a 19-17 lead.

With 6:10 left in the half, Southeast's offense came back to life and the Redhawks regained the lead on a 3-pointer by Tyler Stone.

EIU cut the lead to 32-27 with 2:29 left in the half on a Reggie Smith 3-pointer, but Southeast scored the final seven points of the half. Freshman Antonius Cleveland provided an offensive spark off the bench, scoring the final five points for Southeast.

"My offense starts with defense," Cleveland said. "When I get going on offense, talking, being active ... the game comes easy on the other end."

The Redhawks were able to create some separation late in the first half and held a 39-27 advantage at the break.

The Panthers cut it to 41-33 early in the second half but never came any closer.

Southeast hit four of its first five shots from behind the arc in the second half to take a 57-39 lead with 13:37 remaining and led by as many 22 with less than five minutes remaining.

Stone, who had been fighting the flu, led all scorers with 27 points on 11-of-17 shooting and he knocked down 3 of 4 attempts from behind the arc. Southeast finished 8 of 14 from 3-point range and shot 50 percent (31-62) from the field

"You're not going to take everything in the world away from him, so if you have a choice of what you're going to do, you're going to watch him shoot jump shots, and boy, he made them," Spoonhour said about Stone. "That makes it really tough when he's doing that."

Cleveland finished with 15 points, Johnson had 12 and Darrian Gray had 10. Jarekious Bradley finished with nine points in 14 minutes after being in foul trouble for most of the game. Oddly, Bradley's limited playing time may have not been entirely bad, allowing him to rest a troublesome knee heading into the next round.

Southeast advances to face No. 3 Eastern Kentucky in quarterfinal action at 8 p.m. today at Municipal Auditorium.

A smile was on Stone's face when he was asked about the Redhawks' next opponent, which beat them on a banked-in 3-pointer at the buzzer on Feb. 1.

"We feel like we owe them one most definitely because we had them and they hit that shot," Stone said. "We've just got to remain focused. We've just got to go in and do what we do and play one half at a time."