Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team falls to OVC frontrunners

MURRAY, Ky. -- When a pair of Southeast Missouri State starters were sent to the bench with their fourth fouls before the midway point of the second half against Ohio Valley Conference leader Murray State on Thursday night, coach Dickey Nutt knew it could pose a problem.

Senior forward Nino Johnson and sophomore guard Antonius Cleveland missed several minutes after they went to the sidelines in foul trouble less than two minutes apart.

The Redhawks already faced a double-figure deficit at that point, and when the pair returned with 9 minutes, 42 seconds, it got worse before it got any better.

Murray State pushed its lead to 22 points in the three minutes after Johnson and Cleveland returned and staved off a late comeback by the Redhawks to win 82-72.

"You're playing with a lot of inexperience when that happened," Nutt said. "Those guys are out, you're playing without a couple guys that are averaging 36, 38 minutes a game, and now they have their fourth foul. That puts them in double trouble because not only do they have to sit on the bench, but once they go back in, now you're playing at a different level. That level is 'I don't want to get my fifth one.'"

Southeast scored just seven points and had two field goals from the time Johnson picked up his fourth with 15:54 left until he and Cleveland, who exited 1:39 after him, returned.

The Racers were up 60-48 when they checked back in, and rattled off a 13-3 run over the next four and a half minutes to take a commanding 73-51 lead with 5:01 to play.

Southeast got the "green light," according to Nutt, and hit five 3s during a three-minute span as part of a 21-5 run. A 3 by Cleveland closed the gap to 78-72 with 1:04 remaining.

Southeast Missouri State's Josh Langford shoots against Murray State's Wayne Langston during the second half Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015 in Murray, Kentucky. (Fred Lynch)

After the Racers went back up eight with a pair of free throws, senior forward Aaron Adeoye missed a jumper instead of trying for a layup or 3-pointer like Nutt wanted. MSU sank a couple more free throws for the final score.

"We made a bad decision with trying to shoot that 5-foot shot again where, listen, it's 3s or layups," Nutt said. "... But obviously hitting some shots like that, that helped us."

The Redhawks shot 43.6 percent in the contest and made 9 of 20 attempts from behind the arc. They shot a season-best 83.3 percent from the charity stripe, making 15 of 18 attempts.

Isiah Jones led Southeast with 19 points. Cleveland finished with 17, and Johnson had 16 points and six rebounds.

"That wasn't our best shot," said Jones. "We gave them a good run, but they've got to come to our place."

MSU, which improved to 20-4 and 10-0 in the OVC, shot 51.8 percent from the field. The Racers made 5 of 13 3s and 19 of 29 free-throw attempts as they secured their 18th consecutive win.

"I was proud of our team. Naturally we're disappointed to lose, but let me tell you they've beaten a lot of people over here this year. In fact, this is their 20th win, what 19,18 in a row, something like that? So they're good. They're good," Nutt said. "They make our league good, and they're certainly well deserving, but I was proud of our team because they showed no quit tonight. That could've very well got out of hand, but there was no quit in these guys tonight. That's what a coach can ask for right now."

Southeast dropped to 10-13 on the season and 4-6 in conference, and remains in eighth in the OVC standings.

"When we're focused and we're all locked in, we know what we can do," Cleveland said. "We know what we can do ... and we know we can be a dangerous team. We just can't keep saying the same thing towards the end of the year, we've just got to put it together right now."

"We're just tired of being close and coming up short," Cleveland added. "But a lot of things aren't going our way right now. The injury bug is hitting us and what not, but we've just got to stay strong."

The Redhawks were without leading scorer, senior guard Jarekious Bradley, who watched his team from the bench after suffering a concussion at practice Wednesday. His status is day-to-day, and it's uncertain if he'll play when Southeast hosts Eastern Illinois (14-9, 7-3 OVC) at 6 p.m. Saturday.

"We take that concussion with extreme caution, and it was kind of a fluke deal," said Nutt, who added that Bradley wanted to play but did not pass a doctor's examination. "We were going through a walk-through [yesterday] and going over some of their sets studying for the game, and he comes across a screen and he gets hit with a shoulder in his head, and it just basically knocks him out. It knocked him out of practice, and so that's something where we don't take those kind of injuries lightly at all."

The Racers were also ailing Thursday. Sophomore guard Cameron Payne, who finished with 16 points, did not practice Wednesday due to the flu. MSU coach Steve Prohm had missed the two practices prior to Thursday's contest due to illness and other members of the team have also been sick.