Southeast men's basketball team stumbles at UT-Martin

MARTIN, Tenn. -- Southeast Missouri State men's basketball coach Dickey Nutt wrote "Play hard," "Great attitude," and "Win" on the board in the Redhawks' locker room at the Elam Center on Saturday night.

After their game against the UT Martin Skyhawks, Nutt checked off the two that he believed his players had completed but was unable to cross a win off the list because something else was missing.

Southeast's offense, without leading scorer Jarekious Bradley, who didn't make the trip after missing a class on Thursday, disappeared midway through the second half, and the Redhawks dropped a 70-53 decision.

"Obviously we couldn't score. We had a hard time scoring," Nutt said. "We had wide-open shots. We executed perfectly, but if you noticed, four or five of those were airballs. You just had some guys that just hadn't quite had the minutes and confidence that we needed to get that ball and score. We needed Jarekious."

The Redhawks, who trailed by eight points at halftime, nearly erased a 10-point deficit with 14 minutes, 48 seconds remaining.

Southeast used a 9-0 spurt over the next 3:17, which featured a 3 by junior guard Isiah Jones and was capped with a layup by senior forward Nino Johnson, to cut the deficit to 47-46.

Then the Redhawks scored just seven points over the last 11:31 of the contest, making 3 of 12 shot attempts during those minutes.

"It's been like this all year. Down the stretch, the last four minutes of the game, the last segment, we're down four or five, and it seems like we just panic and just start taking wild shots instead of being calm and running our sets," Jones said. "All year in every game we're right there, but the last four or five minutes we just give it away."

Southeast Missouri State's Josh Langford shoots against UT Martin's Twymond Howard during the second half Saturday, Jan. 24, 2015 in Martin, Tenn. (Fred Lynch)

UTM held a nine-point lead when Jones scored with 4:12 left, but the basket was negated by an offensive foul. The Skyhawks quickly pushed the lead back to double figures and led by as many as 19 in the final minutes.

"I wouldn't blame it on the calls, but the last possession with Isiah, that charge kind of stole the momentum from us a little bit," Southeast sophomore guard Antonius Cleveland said.

Southeast led by as many as five points midway through the first half, but once the Skyhawks took a 23-22 lead with 6:05 left before halftime on a Deville Smith 3-pointer, the Redhawks never led again.

Southeast evened it at 25-all with a 3 by Jones, who had 13 first-half points and finished with a career-high 21, and at 27-all on a jumper from JJ Thompson.

It remained just a two-point game with two minutes to go in the first half before UTM's Alex Anderson knocked down three consecutive 3s, including one in the corner over Cleveland as time expired to push the Skyhawks' lead to 40-32.

"I thought they shot the ball pretty well," Cleveland said. "We can call it what we want, but they just made tough shots. Their three guards just made shots all night. Just got to give them credit."

UTM shot 49 percent from the field in the game and was 7 of 13 from 3-point range.

"I think we could've played post defense better, really just containing, and making sure we shut off the guards," Cleveland said. "A lot of times the guards were catching the ball on the wings with ease, and if we deny the wings then we would force them into turnovers because if their guards can't catch it, then they can't run the offense. We pretty much didn't deny like we should and everything just ran smoothly through their three guards."

Four Skyhawks scored in double figures: Smith finished with 18, forward Twymond Howard had 17, Anderson had 13 and guard Marshun Newell had 12 points and snagged nine rebounds. Center Arkeem Joseph had eight rebounds.

"I think what hurt us as a team was we should've rebounded down more," Jones said. "They got a lot of offensive rebounds. Like once you play defense for 33 seconds and then the shot go up and then we don't get the rebound, then it kind of hurts, but we'll get it together next game."

The Redhawks fell to 9-11 and 3-4 in the OVC and will face SIU Edwardsville on Thursday at the Show Me Center.

UTM improved to 12-7 and 4-2 in the conference, surpassing its conference win total from last season.

"Very difficult to take [away] that kind of guy and come on the road, and you've got to play perfect," Nutt said. "We go 2 for 9 from the free-throw line. We didn't get any calls, but again, give them credit. They've added to their team and they're good. They're going to be somebody to reckon with."