Southeast men's basketball team falls to Arkansas of SEC

Southeast Missouri State men's basketball coach Dickey Nutt was anything but discouraged following his team's road loss to Southeastern Conference opponent Arkansas on Saturday night.

"I know that losing is good for nothing, but the way our guys played tonight, I was really pleased," Nutt said.

The Redhawks were defeated 84-67 by the Razorbacks (9-2) at the Verizon Arena in Little Rock to fall to 5-6 on the season.

"I'll tell you, I was really pleased with our team," Nutt said. "I thought we played with a lot of fight tonight. We faced a good team tonight. ... I thought we gave them a little bit of a scare in the second half, but we didn't come down here just to scare them. We came down here with the intention to win, and that's why you have a hurt locker room."

Arkansas held a 45-28 halftime advantage. The Razorbacks outscored Southeast 15-5 over the final 5 minutes, 19 seconds heading into the break, including eight points in the final 2:13.

"Well, I told them, 'It's not a 17-point game. We let them loose for eight points there in a matter of about a minute a half.' We basically opened the gate and let the gate fall in the last minute and a half and they separated themselves. So I said we want to fight and just chip away. The message at halftime, along with making some adjustments was that we had to be much tougher with the ball. For eight, nine, 10 games, we've played [in games] that were called touch fouls, and tonight there was no such thing. I mean, it was a free-for-all. You better protect that ball or they're going to rake it out of your hands, and that's exactly what they did. I thought we adjusted in the second half and did a much better job. I thought it started with Antonius Cleveland getting to the basket and hitting our free throws. We did a lot of good things tonight."

The Redhawks responded with a 14-4 run to start the second half and pulled within 49-42 on a Nino Johnson layup with 15:17 left.

After a jumper by 6-foot-11 Arkansas forward Bobby Portis to start the second half, Southeast point guard JJ Thompson knocked down a 3-pointer.

A pair of free throws by guard Michael Qualls put the Razorbacks up 49-31 about a minute into the second before the Redhawks scored 11 unanswered.

That stretch started with a jumper by forward Aaron Adeoye and then Southeast capitalized on Arkansas turnovers on the next three possessions with a couple of dunks by Johnson and Thompson's second 3 of the game to pull within nine points before Johnson's layup made it a seven-point contest.

The Redhawks pulled within seven points again at 51-44 and then faced a 10-point deficit with 9:45 to play after Jarekious Bradley knocked down a pair of free throws after Johnson and two Razorbacks were issued technical fouls.

Arkansas extended its lead to 61-49 less than 20 seconds later and Southeast never came any closer. The Redhawks trailed by as many as 23 late.

Southeast wasn't bothered much by the Razorbacks' press, and Nutt credited Thompson, who finished with six points, two assists and had three turnovers, for handling the pressure with ease.

"I thought JJ Thompson was outstanding," Nutt said. "He was a one-man press attack. They had no answer for him on the press."

Southeast shot 19 percent from behind the arc, connecting on just 3 of 16 attempts. Bradley led Southeast with 17 points, but was just 1 of 9 from 3-point range

The Redhawks were much improved from the free-throw line, knocking down 18 of 22 attempts (82 percent).

Johnson chipped in 12 points and 11 rebounds and sophomore guard Antonius Cleveland finished with 13 points and three rebounds.

Portis led the way for the Razorbacks with 24 points and was 9 of 14 from the field. Qualls finished with 15 points, with eight of them coming from the charity stripe. Anthlon Bell added 12 points and was 3 of 6 from 3-point range.

Arkansas was 7 of 19 from behind the arc, with six of their makes coming in the first 20 minutes of the contest.

"The guy that killed us was Portis," Nutt said. "He's such a big, different matchup. He's a big 6-11 guy that can shoot the ball really accurately, he can take it out on the floor, he can do a lot of good things."

The Redhawks face their third SEC opponent of the season when they play Ole Miss at 7 p.m. Monday in Southaven, Mississippi, as part of the Jack Jones Classic.

"I think we take away that we can play at this level, and anything less is unacceptable," Nutt said. "I think we took that away tonight. We had every player in that locker room nodding their head and believing that we can compete with anybody that we play with on a given night."