Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team seeks first win against new school in Texas

The Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team has journeyed to Texas, where the Redhawks will face the Vaqueros of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley at 7 p.m. tonight.

Southeast still seeks its first win of the season after opening coach Rick Ray's first season with three road losses.

UTRGV is in its inaugural year as a university after combining UT Brownsville and UT Pan American. The Vaqueros are 1-3 after a 27-point loss to Miami, a 22-point loss to North Florida, a 22-point victory vs. Texas A&M-Kingsville and an 18-point loss to Portland State.

"They'll be real put together, really disciplined," Ray said. "It looks like they have some talent from watching tape. They've played a really good schedule against some really good teams so far. Miami, obviously is a really good team, North Florida won at Illinois, and Portland State always has a quality team, so I think it'll be quite a challenge."

The toughest challenge the Vaqueros may pose for the Redhawks is their interior play.

Shaquille Hines, a 6-foot-8, 215-pound senior forward, leads UTRGV with 14.8 points and 6.5 rebounds per game. He's made 6 of 11 3-point attempts and is shooting 42.3 percent from the floor.

Sophomore forward Dan Kimasa, who is 6-10 and 230 pounds, averages 13.0 points and 5.8 rebounds. He's shooting 52.4 percent through four games.

Dakota Slaughter is a 6-7 small forward that averages 9.0 points and 3.3 rebounds.

"They really do a good job of getting the ball inside, and they have more of your atypical small forward," Ray said. "Most small forwards these days are really like a third guard that's usually somewhere between 6-3 and 6-5, but they have a bigger 3-man who's probably about 6-7, 6-8. So between him and their 4 and 5 they really do a good job of finding scoring opportunities for those three guys."

Guard Antonio Green averages 12.5 points and 4.5 rebounds and has knocked down 10 of 21 3s. The Vaqueros have a familiar face running the point in JJ Thompson.

Thompson played at Southeast last season after sitting out a season for NCAA transfer regulations.

He made 20 starts under former coach Dickey Nutt and averaged 4.7 points and 2.8 assists for the Redhawks. The 6-0 guard does not have to sit out at UTRGV because he graduated from Southeast and enrolled as a graduate student at UTRGV.

Thompson, who has started all four games for the Vaqueros, is averaging 7.0 points and 4.8 assists.

"We haven't mentioned it one iota at all," Ray said when asked about Thompson.

Ray is more focused on fixing the Redhawks' problems than anyone that they're playing as they try to pick up their first win of the season.

"I think we've got to be more concerned about ourself than we are about the opponent so we've been focusing a lot on cleaning up some of our issues because if we don't clean up our own issues the opponent really doesn't matter," Ray said.

Southeast is coming off a 74-56 loss to Alabama A&M on Thursday. The Redhawks committed a season-high 20 turnovers, made just 2 of 12 3-point attempts and 10 of 21 free throws.

Ray is trying to keep his players focused on the task at hand, but it's been a challenge so far.

"I don't know if there's any college basketball team that's going through the adversity that we're going through right now with guys being injured, suspensions, a coaching change in the middle of the season, so we've got some distractions that we've got to figure out how to get past so that we can get better as a team," Ray said, referencing the firing of assistant Jamie Rosser on Nov. 4 for a violation of university policies and procedures. "Until we get a consistent lineup and a consistent rotation then we won't be getting better as a team."

Southeast will likely only have one true point guard available tonight in sophomore Marcus Wallace. Junior guard Jamaal Calvin returns to the team after serving a four-game suspension for a violation of department policies and procedures, but is struggling with a hamstring injury and Ray doubts he will play.

Freshman guard Eric McGill, who has started the last two games in place of Wallace and averaged 29.3 minutes per game so far, sustained a concussion during practice and is going through concussion protocol. His status is doubtful for today's game.

Ray's still searching for a player that will step up as the obvious leader for the Redhawks, who return to the Show Me Center for their home opener against Loyola Marymount on Saturday.

"It's hard to say where that is going to come from at this point in time because we just have been so inconsistent in our lineups, and it's really unfair to our guys because guys are having to learn multiple positions," Ray said of the team leadership. "You know, this guy is playing the 2 one game and then the next game he's got to play the 3, and the next game this guy's playing a 4 and now the next game he's got to play the 5, so it's been difficult on them. It hasn't been easy."