Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team drops sixth straight to SIUE

Southeast Missouri State senior guard Isiah Jones, who'd just knocked down his second 3-pointer of the night with 5 seconds remaining to cut the SIU Edwardsville men's basketball team's lead to one, was the guy that got the shot with the chance to send the game into overtime after the Cougars pushed their lead back to 3 with 4.3 left on the clock.

Jones came off a screen and launched a deep 3 from the top of the arc at the Show Me Center that was right on line but was just short as the Redhawks dropped a 72-69 decision to the visiting Cougars (6-20, 3-11 Ohio Valley Conference) on Thursday night.

"I really thought it was in, just fell a little short," Jones said. "If I could do it all over again, I'd take the same shot with the same confidence."

Jones' miss wasn't the biggest missed opportunity of the night. The Redhawks, who shot 41.8 percent from the field and 47.3 percent on 2-point field goals, outscored the Cougars in the paint, but left too many points off the board.

"We had 30 points in the paint compared to their 22, and it really should've been somewhere around 45-50 points in the paint," Southeast coach Rick Ray said, noting forward Trey Kellum was sidelined with a concussion. "I thought we had a lot of opportunities at the rim and wasn't able to finish. Obviously not having Trey Kellum, who's one of our bigger, stronger physical guys, has the ability to finish at the rim, hurts, but we've got to convert those."

Southeast led by as many as 13 in the first half of the second meeting between the two teams; the Redhawks had already won 58-51 on the road at SIUE.

The Redhawks took a 24-11 lead with help from a 11-0 run over a span of 1 minute, 11 seconds midway through the half. Antonius Cleveland drained a 3 then was fouled on Southeast's next possession and SIUE's Jake Newton was also issued a technical. Cleveland and Jamaal Calvin combined to make all four free throws.

Joel Angus III hit two more free throws seconds later, then Cleveland came up with a steal and capped the run with a dunk with 8:42 left in the half.

The Redhawks were still up 13 with 4:20 to go, but the Cougars closed out the half on a 16-2 run that put them up 36-35 at the break.

"They started off the game and got two easy buckets, and then I thought from that point on we really did a great job defensively. ... Then we got a big lead and I thought we kind of fell into a trap," Ray said. "We were getting a lot of steals and a lot of turnovers with our defense, but we were getting those because we were sound, solid and compact. Then I think our guys got a little drunk with the success that they were having, they started gambling, and once we started gambling we weren't sound anymore."

Southeast regained the lead with a basket by Angus to start the second half, but SIUE drained 3s on its next two possessions to take the lead back for good.

The Redhawks trimmed the deficit to three twice in the first 12 minutes of the second half, but the Cougars, who made 6 of 11 3-point attempts in the final 20 minutes, answered with a triple each time.

"I thought there was multiple times where we got the shot-clock defense down to 10 seconds, 5 seconds, 3 seconds, and either of three things happened," Ray said. "We either fouled with the shot-clock running down, we gave up an uncontested 3 with the shot-clock running down or we played good, good solid defense for 30 seconds and then we had the inability to get the defensive rebound. I thought our urgency at the end of the shot-clock really hurt us on the defensive end."

SIUE never led by more than nine in the contest and held a five-point lead with 32 seconds remaining when Calvin hit his only 3 of the game to cut it to 68-66 with 20 seconds to play.

Burak Eslik hit two free throws for the Cougars before Jones brought it within one with a trey.

Southeast doubled Eslik as it picked up full-court man with 5 seconds left, leaving Keenan Simmons open for a dunk for the final score.

"I thought we made some really good decisions not taking that first early 3 that maybe, maybe not, is a good shot," Ray said of what allowed his team to get back in the game, "but I thought we got some really quality shots by continuing to pass the ball and attacking the paint."

It was the sixth straight loss for Southeast, which dropped to 5-22 and 2-12 in the OVC.

The Redhawks host Eastern Illinois in their final home game at 4:15 p.m. Saturday.

"Winning is very hard, so just don't take nothing for granted and play hard on every possession," Jones said of what he hopes the underclassmen learn from the close loss.