Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team launches OVC play with loss to Belmont

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team had a shot to take down two-time defending regular-season Ohio Valley Conference champion Belmont in its conference opener at the Curb Event Center on Thursday.

But the Redhawks never got that shot off in the closing seconds and were handed a 78-77 defeat.

Southeast senior forward Nino Johnson secured the rebound off the missed front-end of a one-and-one by Belmont guard Reece Chamberlain with 3.8 seconds left.

Junior guard Isiah Jones got the ball and dribbled up the floor before passing it off to senior guard Jarekious Bradley and the Redhawks were unable to get off a shot as time expired.

"They missed their free throw and the design is there's three dribbles and a shot," Nutt said. "It's not three dribbles and a pass. It's three dribbles and a shot. But I'm not blaming him on that. I thought Isiah played well."

The Redhawks had trailed by as many as 11 points in the second half and faced an eight-point deficit with less than three minutes to go.

A pair of free throws by senior point guard JJ Thompson and a 3-pointer by Jones cut it to 76-73 with 2:14 left.

Thompson pulled it back within 3 following a basket by Belmont's Craig Bradshaw 45 seconds later, and a jumper by Bradley pulled Southeast within one with 43 seconds to play.

The Redhawks came up with the ball after a couple of Belmont misses on the ensuing possession and pushed it down the floor with about 12 seconds remaining.

Thompson's pass to sophomore guard Antonius Cleveland in the corner near Southeast's bench was deflected and then saved from going out of bounds by Bradshaw for a steal that led to the foul that sent Chamberlain to the line for the one-and-one.

"We never call a timeout in a situation like that. We would rather have an advantage on a break," Nutt said. "Instead of being five-on-five, we had them three-on-two, and it was a matter of they just made a specific, good deflection there because if we'd have caught that ball I think Antonius would have been able to get to the basket for an easy basket, but I think five-on-five is much different. That's how we work it every day. We would rather play at an advantage [after a] defensive rebound."

The Bruins took the lead for good on a dunk by Bradshaw with 16:36 to play in the first half, but never led by more than 10 points before the break.

Belmont knocked down 8 of 16 3-point attempts in the first half while Southeast made 6 of 11.

Two of the Redhawks' 3s came in the final 1:11 of the first half -- one apiece for Bradley and Jones -- that cut the Bruins' lead to three points, but Taylor Barnette's 3-pointer in the closing seconds made it a 47-41 halftime deficit.

"We knew that they were going to make 3s, so be prepared," Johnson said. "We never got down on ourselves because that's their DNA, so we just stayed with it. We knew there was going to come a time when the momentum was going to come in our direction, and it did."

A 3-pointer by Bradshaw with 15:57 left gave the Bruins their largest lead at 55-44, but a 13-4 run by the Redhawks that ended with a dunk by Johnson made it just a two-point game with 11:10 left.

Belmont's next four possessions resulted in 3-pointers to make it 71-64 less than three minutes later. The Bruins missed six of their final seven 3s after that to finish 14 of 31 from behind the arc.

"There wasn't anything better we could do. We did exactly what the coaches wanted us to do," Johnson said. "Sometimes once they rolled on ball screens, we stayed and helped the ball screens and they kicked it out and they missed. Sometimes we stayed and they got the layups.

"We were just depending on our defense, period. Doing exactly what the coaches said. Things just didn't go in our direction at times."

Southeast shot 46.3 percent from the floor in the game -- 7 of 19 on 3-pointers -- and was 20 of 26 from the charity stripe.

"Not as good as we want to, but I thought offensively we were very good," Nutt said. "I thought first half was as good of offense as we've played all year long. I thought we executed, we screened well, we shot the ball well, we shot free throws well. We did a lot of good things tonight not to get a win. We're disappointed, we're going to move on and we're just as strong as anybody in this league. We've just got to play it and just get better every game."

The Redhawks (6-8, 0-1 OVC) remain in Nashville where they'll face Tennessee State on Saturday at the Gentry Center. The game is slated for a 7:30 p.m. tipoff following the women's game.

"We've got to lock in on both ends of the court," Bradley said. "We've got to put 40 minutes together instead of playing in spurts, like 5-10 minute spurts. We've got to put a whole game together. Once we get that we'll get going pretty good. Hopefully we'll be able to come out with more intensity at the beginning of the game against TSU."