Southeast Missouri State men's basketball is still searching for a defensive identity

Depending upon which bench you were sitting on, the numbers were either beautiful or horrifying. Seventy-nine points on 55.2 percent shooting, including 10 of 18 from behind the 3-point line. That was Bowling Green's offensive night on Tuesday at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau. A great performance if you're a Falcon, but for the other bird of prey in the building -- the Redhawks -- there was plenty wrong with it.

Three days after a solid defensive performance against Memphis led Southeast Missouri State men's basketball to one of its best efforts of the season, the search for a defensive identity resumed against Bowling Green, and it did not go well.

"We knew they were a pretty good passing team and they have good shooters," Redhawks junior Antonius Cleveland said. "The scout[ing report] was to be patient on offense and on defense go by the report -- take away shots and play our zone the way we practiced it this week."

The zone was a 1-3-1 scheme that generally had its intended effect earlier in the week against a Tiger team that's not great from outside the arc and likes to shoot from the short corner. That's not Bowling Green's M.O., but Southeast coach Rick Ray's biggest fear entering the game was that the Falcon's superior passing would stretch his team's man-to-man defense. So the 1-3-1 remained, with the intent to keep the Redhawks more compact and positionally sound.

"We're comfortable [in the 1-3-1]," Southeast senior Isiah Jones said. "We've got to fly around more. At Memphis it was the same way."

That zone defense is one of a number of schemes the team has used this season, including the 2-3 zone and a man-to-man look. None have become the team's bread and butter. Instead, the Redhawks have continued looking for something that consistently works, often changing multiple times within a game. That's not uncommon, but the problem is that SEMO has often struggled regardless of the defensive setup.

Tuesday night, the Redhawks went to man-to-man -- something Ray admitted after the game the team had not practiced much leading up to the matchup -- out of the halftime break, trailing 35-22, and the gap got bigger. A switch back to the 1-3-1 didn't yield much better results, and Bowling Green shot 64.3 percent from the field -- including 70 percent from 3-point range -- in the game's final 20 minutes.

"I trusted my players and they said they wanted to try to play man defense," Ray said. "I wanted to give our guys ownership of our team -- I think that's important -- but we just weren't successful."

Some players admit there's still a major unknown hovering over what the team's defensive strengths are, because so far the defense hasn't revealed many. As the search for the best fit for the unit continues, so do the questions. Comfort level is still an enigma.

"I feel like I'm athletic and I can play whatever," Cleveland said. "Looking at the numbers, I think the 1-3-1 is the obvious bet, but it's just hard to tell what we're comfortable with because we struggle at times."

In a season that's often been a struggle through eight games, defense is not the only thing not going well for Southeast. But despite that -- and maybe because of it -- defense might be the most critical thing that has let SEMO down.

"I think we should be known as a defensive team because we struggle so much on offense," Jones said. "It seems like no one can buy a basket right now. Point blank. Period. ... We've got to grind out games and pull it out like that."

The Redhawks are still learning how to do that. Tuesday night showed the learning curve is still steep. When Bowling Green wasn't nailing 3s, it was getting chances near the rim, either in transition or on rebounds, scoring 44 points in the paint. At times, Southeast appeared helpless to stop the Falcons.

In Ray's mind, it doesn't matter how his team lines up positionally on defense. Whether it's a 1-3-1 zone or a 2-3 zone or a man scheme, he believes his team is capable of being successful no matter what the look. The key, he says, is his team's acceptance of what it is -- a squad that must look to defense first.

"I think we just need to understand that fact, and I think we don't understand that yet," the coach said. "I don't think it matters what type of defense we play.

"In football it's easy. They put the crazy, deranged guys on defense and they fly around, and they put the calm, cool, collected guys on offense. But in basketball you've got to flip that switch. ... We can't let us not being successful on the offensive end affect how we play on the defensive end."

On Tuesday that switch was not flipped, and Southeast Missouri State remained in the dark.