Southeast men's basketball team grabs two wins in Mexico

~ The Redhawks routed Tulane 102-72 a day after beating Northern Kentucky by 14 points

In its first two games of the Cure UCD Classic the Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team has combined for 25 3-pointers.

The Redhawks have used their strong shooting from behind the arc to improve to 2-0 in the tournament.

Southeast hit 16 3-pointers -- a new tournament record -- in its 102-72 victory over Tulane 102-72 on Saturday at the Puerta Vallarta International Convention Center in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico.

"It was a balanced effort tonight and I was proud of the way we played," Southeast coach Dickey Nutt said in a press release. "We shot better from 3-point range than we have all season."

The Redhawks knocked down nine 3-pointers against Northern Kentucky as they cruised to a 79-65 win Friday.

Tulane kept up with Southeast for the first nine minutes of the game, but then the Redhawks took control.

With the game tied at 13-13 with 11 minutes, 48 seconds left in the first half, Southeast went on a 19-5 run. Jamaal Calvin made three 3-pointers and Jarekious Bradley had one during the spurt to give the Redhawks a 32-18 lead with 5:58 left in the half.

Southeast shot 60 percent and led by 18 points at the half -- the same number of points that Calvin and Darrian Gray combined for off the bench over the first 20 minutes.

The Redhawks opened the second half with a 3-pointer from Tyler Stone and went on a 15-8 run to extend their lead to 25 points just six minutes into the half.

Southeast made seven more 3-pointers down the stretch.

Six Redhawks players finished with double-digit scoring. The Redhawks shot 59.3 percent for the game, including 50 percent from 3-point range.

Jarekious Bradley led all players with 23 points on 5-of-9 shooting from behind the arc.

Antonius Cleveland had a career-high 17 points and Darrian Gray finished with 15. Calvin had 13 points on 4-of-5 shooting. He was a 3 of 3 from 3-point range.

Stone, who didn't play most of the first half due to foul trouble, finished with 14 points and seven rebounds.

"Tyler's battling foul trouble right now and he's just got to be smarter and play harder," Nutt said in a radio interview. "But the other guys are stepping up."

Nino Johnson started scored his second game of the tournament -- and season -- and finished with a double-double, scoring 10 points and grabbing 12 rebounds.

Southeast outrebounded the Green Wave 37-22. Tulane (4-4) entered the contest with a plus-eight rebounding advantage per game.

"One of our big emphasis today was trying to neutralize that and trying to nullify all that and make sure that they don't have big rebounding nights," Nutt said. "But you look at Nino and Jarekious and Tyler, and those guys are really, really big in there. Then you insert a guy in there like Darrian Gray -- he had some monstrous rebounds in the second half."

In Friday's win, the Redhawks led Northern Kentucky (1-5) 38-36 at halftime and opened the second half with a 13-2 run. Southeast led 51-38 with 14:29 left in the game.

The Redhawks shot 63.6 percent in the second half -- 57.1 percent in the game -- to secure the win.

Lucas Nutt led Southeast with a season-high 21 points on 6-of-6 shooting. He made three from behind the arc and was 6 of 6 on free throws.

Stone scored 17 points and collected seven rebounds. Johnson had 10 points and nine rebounds in his first start of the season.

The Redhawks (5-2) play their final game in the Cure UCD Classic against Texas State (2-5) at 4 p.m. today at the Puerta Vallarta International Convention Center in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico.

"Texas State is going to be a big challenge for us," Dickey Nutt said. "They're well coached. You're talking about a team that's going to pass it for 30 seconds, so we're going to really have some discipline on defense."