Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team returns to winning ways vs. JSU

The Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team's long bus ride back from Jacksonville, Alabama, was a little sweeter Wednesday night.

The Redhawks returned home with a 69-52 win against Jacksonville State at the Pete Mathews Coliseum to improve to 8-10 overall and 2-3 in the Ohio Valley Conference.

"I thought we challenged them probably as hard as we possibly could after the last couple games," Southeast coach Dickey Nutt said. "Really questioned their heart, questioned their desire, and I'll tell you what, they put it together. Not only tonight, but they put it together for about three days. They locked in what we wanted to do."

Southeast never trailed after jumping out to an 8-0 lead with 3-pointers by Isiah Jones and Jarekious Bradley and pair of free throws by Nino Johnson two minutes into the game.

JSU pulled within three twice the rest of the first half, including at 25-22 with 3:08 remaining before the break, but a couple of layups by Jones pushed the Redhawks halftime advantage to 29-22.

The Redhawks scored the first five points of the second half to push their lead to 12. The Gamecocks cut it to nine points with 17:25 remaining in the contest but never got any closer.

Once sophomore guard Antonius Cleveland drained a 3 a minute and a half later to give Southeast a 38-26 edge, JSU never got the margin back to single digits. The Redhawks led by as many as 19.

"We beat a good team tonight. I really believe they're pretty good here at home, but I thought from the start to finish that we played really focused, very determined for 40 minutes," Nutt said. "It was a good win for us. I didn't want to [say this before] but this was a must-win. We needed this for a lot of reasons. We needed just to get back in the winning column and just for confidence reasons."

JSU shot just 29.1 percent from the floor in the contest and made just 3 of 14 attempts from 3-point range. The Gamecocks made 17 of 21 free throws in the game.

Senior guard Darion Rackley, the conference's sixth-leading scorer, led JSU with 15 points, but was 3 of 14 from the floor. He had just three points in the first half and made six free throws in the final six minutes of the game.

"I thought our gameplan was good," Nutt said. "Rackley is the guy that makes them go, and so what we tried to do is absolutely shut him off. Shut him off, everything that he does. ... A good player's going to get his, but I thought we did a good job on him."

The Redhawks shot 44 percent in the game and made 9 of 22 3-point attempts, a new season high. They were 16 of 22 from the free-throw line.

"I think that there's no question that everyone understood their role tonight, and that at opportune times we're going to get Jarekious Bradley the ball," Nutt said. "He had 15 attempts, but he's still not particularly shooting the ball great. What happens is everybody pays so much attention to him that the other guys get to flourish because he's a very unselfish player."

Bradley and sophomore Jamaal Calvin led the Redhawks with 13 points apiece. Calvin was 3 of 4 from 3-point range, 4 for 4 from the charity stripe and did not have a turnover in 25 minutes off the bench after playing just six total minutes in conference action this season.

"If one guy had to have the game ball it has to be Jamaal Calvin," Nutt said. "He was good tonight. He shot the ball well, was our high-point man with 13 points."

Senior forward Aaron Adeoye finished with 10 points and five rebounds off the bench while junior guard Isiah Jones and senior forward Nino Johnson each had nine points. Johnson had 12 rebounds, a block and two steals after playing just 12 minutes against Eastern Kentucky on Saturday. The usual 44 percent free-throw shooter was also 5 of 6 from the line.

"I'm just trying to get him to play at a consistent level," Nutt said of Johnson. "Like I told him after the game, I was very, very proud of his efforts. I'm proud of his free-throw shooting. He had one block, but he altered about four or five. But I said, 'Nino, I'm not going to brag on you too quick. I want consistency. I want night in, night out, and if you don't play hard you won't play.' And he understands that. That's just the way the game is."

Southeast returns to the Show Me Center to host Tennessee Tech (9-8, 1-3 OVC) at 6 p.m. Saturday.