Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team routs APSU in final regular-season tune-up

The Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team struggled to put teams away late during the three games entering Saturday night's regular-season finale against Austin Peay at the Show Me Center.

While the Redhawks didn't have the dark cloud of needing to win to reach the Ohio Valley Conference tournament hanging over their heads, they somehow finally played with the sense of urgency that coach Dickey Nutt has been seeking, and it led to an 89-65 victory over the Govs on Senior Night.

The Redhawks knew entering the game that they already were in the conference tourney following a Jacksonville State loss on Thursday night but didn't take the Govs lightly.

"We wanted to earn our spot," Southeast junior guard Isiah Jones said. "Coach kept saying, 'It isn't over yet. We've still got a tournament to play.' If we win 10 in a row, we're national champions. If we win four in a row, we're conference tournament champs. We just want to take it one game at a time. This game was critical and gave us momentum going into the tournament."

Southeast trailed for 4 minutes, 24 seconds in the game, but once a free throw by Jones tied it at 15 with 11:08 left in the first half the Redhawks never trailed again.

Jones' free throw was the start of an 8-0 spurt for Southeast, which featured 3s by freshman guard Marcus Wallace and sophomore guard Antonius Cleveland.

A 3-point play by Govs forward Chris Horton two and a half minutes later brought the gap to five, but it never was any closer.

APSU didn't make another field goal for exactly six minutes as the Redhawks built up a 16-point lead.

Southeast held a 41-27 advantage at halftime, outscoring the Govs 13-2 off turnovers and 15-2 on second-chance points.

Southeast Missouri State's Jarekious Bradley drives and shoots against Austin Peay's Chris Freeman during the second half Saturday, Feb. 28, 2015 at the Show Me Center. (Fred Lynch)

Nutt had centered his practices around situations like being up eight points with nine minutes to go during practice after the Redhawks' letdowns in their last three games, and he continued to emphasize that during the break on Saturday.

"'Learn how to win. Learn how to milk the clock when you need to. Learn how to keep your foot on their neck when you need to,'" Nutt said of what he stressed to his team in practice leading up to Saturday's game. " ... It doesn't matter if you're 10 up. You keep running your same stuff."

The Govs scored the first four points in the first minute of the second half before Southeast took over.

APSU was then held to just four free throws, no field goals, until the 13:30 mark.

The Redhawks lead was down to 14 after a layup by APSU forward Chris Freeman with 10:53 to play, but they rattled off 13 points over the next 2:05 to take a 68-41 lead.

Jones sank a pair of 3s, and senior guard Jarekious Bradley hit a 3 and a jumper during the span. Southeast hit a season-high 14 3-pointers in the contest. Jones and Bradley each went 4 of 7 from behind the arc to pace the Redhawks, who finished 50 percent from 3.

"Coach told us tonight to shoot the ball," Cleveland said after Jones said to just call them the "Splash Brothers." "We've been kind of hesitant sometimes, and tonight he just told us when we're open just shoot it. When he told us that, I mean, you love to hear that. Tonight we just came in with more confidence to shoot the ball."

APSU never came closer than 22 points of the Redhawks the remainder of the game, and Southeast took its largest lead of 29 points with 1:51 remaining on a 3 by senior guard Caleb Woods, who got into a game for just the fifth time this season.

"Even though we beat a team with a losing record, I understand that, but that's the same team that beat Eastern Illinois, that plays everybody so close," Nutt said. "We were decisive tonight, but we did it doing those little things. If you had to write anything about the reason we won: all-out effort. Man, a sense of urgency, doing the right things."

Southeast Missouri State's Antonius Cleveland dunks against Austin Peay during the second half Saturday, Feb. 28, 2015 at the Show Me Center. (Fred Lynch)

Nutt and Cleveland both credited Wallace, who got his first career start Saturday night, with the Redhawks' intensity on defense. The freshman had five steals to go along with 10 points, seven rebounds and five assists. He also didn't commit a turnover in 33 minutes of action.

"Tonight he got the start, so he pretty much set the tone for the entire game," Cleveland said. "He was everywhere flying around and getting steals, and we just wanted to match his intensity."

Cleveland finished with 10 points, six rebounds, three assists and two steals while Jones had 16 points.

Bradley finished with 28 points on 11-of-18 shooting to lift him to 1,008 points in his two-year career at Southeast. He also had seven rebounds, three assists and two steals off the bench.

"I just wanted to go out with a bang," Bradley said. "That's all I wanted to do. Put a show on for that home crowd."

The eighth-seeded Redhawks will face No. 5 Morehead State at 6 p.m. Wednesday night in a first-round OVC tournament contest at Nashville Municipal Auditorium.

"They try to out-tough you," Nutt said. "Now what are we going to do? Let's get with it and let's bring that same effort. If you bring that same effort every day we're going to be OK. ... This was an important game tonight because of the feel. You've got to have that confidence going into that tournament. You back into that tournament with four losses and it's, 'Oh, here we go.' This was an important game."