Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team falls to Morehead State in OVC tourney opener

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- With it's season on the line in the first round of the Ohio Valley Conference tournament, the Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team did a lot of things well.

The Redhawks scored with ease for much of the game, shot free throws as well as they have the entire season and even out-rebounded one of the top rebounding teams in the conference.

While those things didn't pose problems for Southeast, the 17 times the team threw the ball out of bounds, dribbled it off their own leg, were called for a backcourt violation or traveled did. The list goes on and on.

It was those 17 turnovers that made all the difference in No. 8 Southeast's 79-74 loss to No. 5 Morehead State on Wednesday at Municipal Auditorium.

"Still we were just trading baskets, and it goes to several possessions in a game, and you never know which one it's going to be, but it goes down to turnovers," Southeast coach Dickey Nutt said. "You look at the stat sheet -- it's even all the way across the board, but you look at the turnovers and they had that many more possessions than we did because of those turnovers. That's the thing that just keeps bouncing back at me."

The Redhawks' season ended with a record of 13-17 -- their first losing record under Nutt since 2011. It also marks the first time they've been eliminated in the first round of the tournament since 2007. They'd made the tournament each year since 2011 and have advanced to the quarterfinals each year.

"Certainly have had a topsy turvy year, for sure," Nutt said. "Couldn't get everything together whether it be injuries or chemistry or whatever it was, but I was proud of our team because I think that we hung on in that storm, and we represented today. But I'm not in for moral victories. It's either you win or you lose, and we lose."

The Redhawks and Eagles went into halftime tied at 37 after Southeast freshman guard Marcus Wallace drove and scored with 4 seconds left in the first half to even it.

There were 12 ties in the second half and neither team led by more than three points until MSU sealed the victory with a pair of free throws with .8 second remaining.

"It was an ugly game, but it was a hard-fought game," MSU coach Sean Woods said. "It was two teams that were just trying to find their way in the first game of the tournament, and I just thought our team, we really from an offensive standpoint never really got it going. First-game jitters, just trying to get in there and get out, and I thought SEMO made it hard for us. They came at us with everything they had, and we're fortunate to get out of this game."

Southeast shot 46.7 percent from the field, hit 5 of 13 3-point attempts and hit 27 of 35 shots from the line in the loss. The Redhawks had opportunities to increase the lead when they had it, but the ball ended up back in the Eagles' hands in those key times.

Southeast was up by three early in the second half and senior forward Aaron Adeoye snagged a rebound against an Eagles squad that had five offensive rebounds in the first half and had outscored the Redhawks 7-0 on second-chance points but had it stolen away, and MSU hit a 3 that tied it.

The Redhawks went up 46-44 with 14:26 left and senior guard Jarekious Bradley dribbled the ball off his own foot and out of bounds on two consecutive possessions -- once under Southeast's basket while going up for a layup.

But Southeast was able to remain close thanks in part to the fact that MSU finished with just 15 points off the Redhawks' turnovers.

"Normally when we get in really a two-to-one type of deal we're really good.That's when we've been running away from teams," Woods said. "We couldn't get away from them because we weren't capitalizing on the turnovers we were creating."

Still, the miscues led to fewer opportunities for Southeast, which finished with 45 shot attempts compared to 58 for MSU.

A 3-pointer by junior guard Isiah Jones with 4:02 left and a pair of free throws by sophomore guard Antonius Cleveland 38 seconds later gave Southeast a 69-66 lead that didn't last long.

MSU senior guard Angelo Warner hit a jumper and Kareem Storey sank a pair of free throws, following a couple of misses at the line for Cleveland, to put the Eagles up one with 2:22 left.

The Redhawks never took another lead. They evened it at 70 when Cleveland made one of two free throws with about two minutes left.

A Bradley dunk with 39 seconds remaining pulled the Redhawks within one. It took 16 seconds for Southeast to foul and send Warner to the line, and he made both.

Cleveland scored Southeast's final points with a couple more free throws -- he finished 10 of 14 from the line -- and after Storey made it 77-74 with 9 seconds left, the Redhawks got off a game-tying 3-point attempt from sophomore guard Jamaal Calvin that was no good.

Nutt felt his team's turnovers came from not playing with a "sense of urgency" like he'd stressed to them over the final few weeks of the season.

"Sometimes the ball just rolls that way," Cleveland answered when asked about not playing with a sense of urgency in an elimination game. "I know you can't make those plays, but it's the game of basketball, stuff like that happens. Like coach said, you never know which play it can be, and the turnovers being 17-8 definitely hurt us. That's the reason why we lost."

Nutt also thought the team's defensive efforts weren't good enough.

MSU 6-foot-10 senior center Billy Reader dominated the Redhawks inside, leading the Eagles with 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting and grabbing 10 rebounds.

"This is the big time to step up and play," Reader said. "I have to give it up to my teammates. They're responsible for a lot of my points. I got in the right position and they gave me the ball. It's all about just playing your hardest and giving everything that you have to leave it all out because there's no chance to lose. We've got to keep winning. We've got three more games left. This wasn't the easiest game, and it wasn't the prettiest game, but we got through it."

Reader only shot two free throws in the game, after Nutt had emphasized sending the post player to the free-throw line in the practices leading up to Wednesday's game.

"He's a big, wide body and he's very crafty," Nutt said. "He kind of keeps a little separation away for our defenders. Our game plan was to put him on the free-throw line, and I don't know if he shot a free throw. I think he made about every shot he took. That was disappointing for us. That was one letdown. Several letdowns on defense, but that was one of them, and he hurt us. When we needed a stop, we couldn't *... but in our defense a couple of them were off-balance and this and that."

MSU shot 44.8 percent from the field and was 6 of 13 from beyond the arc. The Eagles hit 21 of 28 free throws.

Warner finished with 16 points while guard Corban Collins and forward Karam Mashour scored 12 apiece.

Bradley led Southeast with 23 points on 6-of-15 shooting and had eight rebounds. He was 11 of 12 from the line in his final game as a Redhawk.

"I'm hurt," Bradley said before his eyes filled with tears.

Cleveland finished with 14 points and seven rebounds while Jones contributed 13 points and Calvin had 11.

"They're going to be good for years to come. We're excited about the future," Nutt said of his returning players. "We feel like we're going to add a couple pieces to these guys, and I think that we can start off where we left off this year barring any injuries and things like that. We felt like that coming into this year. We felt like this was going to be our most experienced team as well, and it was. Sometimes it just doesn't work out."