Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team off to worst start in OVC history

The Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team's Ohio Valley Conference woes continued Wednesday night.

Southeast cemented its worst start to conference play since joining Division I and the OVC in 1991. The Redhawks fell to 0-5 in conference play with a 70-34 loss to Jacksonville State at the Pete Mathews Coliseum in Jacksonville, Alabama.

It also marked the Gamecocks' (12-5, 3-2 OVC) most lopsided OVC victory ever.

"Honestly I think they've got to look themselves in the mirror. I do. I know I'm the head basketball coach. I'm the one who will get blamed for all of it, and that's fine," Southeast coach Ty Margenthaler said. "But there's some ownership that they've got to take and some accountability that they've got to take, and we've all got to take. We're all in this together. To get out of this situation we're going to have to just be tougher. That's the thing that we're lacking. We're lacking mental toughness. No one's going to change this for us. We're going to have to change it for ourselves, and if we're tough enough we can do it. We're going to find out if we're tough enough or not, and that's something that's going to be shown in the next six, seven weeks."

The Redhawks never led in the contest. They pulled within three points on senior guard Allyson Bradshaw's 150th career 3-pointer to make it 8-5 with 6 minutes, 14 seconds into the contest, but never got any closer in the rout.

A 14-6 run by the Gamecocks that made it 22-11 with 7:45 left in the first half gave JSU a double-figure lead for good.

The Redhawks were held to just two points the remainder of the half, and didn't score after sophomore guard Brianna Mitchell's jumper with 5:17 before the break as the Gamecocks built up a 40-13 halftime lead.

Southeast had as many first-half turnovers as they did points with 13 while JSU turned it over just once in the first 20 minutes of action.

"I thought we had some good looks and got inside the paint and had some good opportunities, but it just wasn't going in early," Margenthaler said. "Then Jacksonville State was really on fire and they shot the ball really well, but I was disappointed because the one thing that we have done consistently, I feel like is we've been defending really well to keep us in games and give us a chance to win games here the last few weeks. Tonight the effort and toughness was not there for 40 minutes."

The Gamecocks quickly pushed their lead past 30 points and led by as many as 40 at 66-26 with 4:46 left.

JSU had four players score in double figures -- Destany McLin 19, Briana Benson 15, Courtney Strain 11 and Tyler Phelion 10.

The Gamecocks shot 46.3 percent from the floor and 29.2 percent from 3-point range (7 of 24).

Southeast went with a smaller lineup because Margenthaler felt they'd match up better with the guard-oriented Gamecocks.

"We were going to switch on a lot of screens, and we worked on that the past two days, but I felt our communication was very poor," Margenthaler said. "We didn't switch all the time when we needed to, transition defense we didn't get back. That was the frustrating thing because to me that's a reflection of the category of just effort and hustle, and we lacked that a little bit tonight and that's the frustrating thing."

The Redhawks shot 28 percent and were 4 of 15 from behind the arc. Freshman guard Hannah Noe led Southeast with eight points in 24 minutes off the bench.

"We've got to execute better. We've just got to knock down shots," Margenthaler said. "Now they're sagging off of us, they're not guarding us. It's a 10-15 foot jumper -- we've got to be able to shoot it. Until we start making shots they're not going to play us. They're going to dare us to shoot those shots, and all we can do is keep working on it."

Southeast (7-11) hosts Tennessee Tech (5-12, 2-2 OVC) at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at the Show Me Center.

"Very disappointed in the overall 40 minutes of the game," Margenthaler said. "I was very confident going into the ballgame. We had two very upbeat practices, with energy and we really felt like we got something accomplished, had really good meetings with captains and the players, and all those things, so I felt really good going into the game. But I really think it's at a point right now where we've just got to keep fighting. We're not a real confident basketball team. It's easy to do those things in practice, but when the lights are on in the game we go into a little bit of a shell."