Southeast Missouri State women's basketball tries to bounce back vs. UTM

At practice a couple of days ago, Southeast Missouri State women's basketball coach posed a question to her team.

"Why did we not play the way we are capable of playing on Saturday?" Patterson asked, referring to the Redhawks' 64-59 loss that snapped a 21-game losing streak for Eastern Illinois.

Her message continued with the concept of her team playing its best each time it steps onto the court, which she believes her players will respond well to when they step onto the court at the Elam Center in Martin, Tennessee, tonight to take on defending Ohio Valley Conference champion and current league leader UT Martin at 6 p.m.

"As far as how are we going to respond, we are coming off of a disappointing loss at Eastern Illinois on Saturday and we understand that our goals are still in front of us as far as getting to Nashville, but more importantly than getting to Nashville is playing our best basketball," Patterson said. "We're going to have to go out and play extremely hard, extremely tough and together. We're going to have to really focus on executing the game plan, especially defensively, and hopefully that puts us in a position to be successful and make it a ballgame in the fourth quarter."

Patterson's seen glimpses of the Redhawks' best throughout the season. She views their 96-59 victory over Murray State last Wednesday as their best offensive performance and the team's victories over Belmont and Tennessee State on the opening weekend of conference, more than a month ago, were probably the most complete games so far.

Patterson had an idea of why her team didn't perform its best on the road at EIU.

"They're absolutely amazing in that you can talk about things, and we talked about, 'Don't look at their record.' We talked about how hard they play. We talked about how close they were in their conference games -- it wasn't just like it was completely blowouts or anything like that -- and we told them they were going to be hungry," Patterson said. "But you know, young people, sometimes they read the stats, they look at the numbers, and, unfortunately, I don't think we respected the game of basketball enough when we stepped on the floor and I think it's a lesson that we learned and we understand that, and I don't think you're going to see that type of effort from this program definitely for the rest of this season."

Southeast (14-10, 7-4 OVC) faces a UTM team that is 16-7 overall and 9-1 in the conference.

The Skyhawks are alone atop the conference standings after rallying to defeat SIU Edwardsville 85-79 on Saturday and stretch their win streak to nine games.

UTM's fifth win in that unbeaten stretch was an 84-74 defeat of the Redhawks at the Show Me Center on Jan. 24.

The Skyhawks led by as many as 17 points in that contest before Southeast tried to claw back in the final 10 minutes.

UTM's since beaten Tennessee State (77-50), Murray State (92-62), Austin Peay (75-51) and SIUE.

Forward Haley Howard averages 17.6 points and 4.1 rebounds per game in OVC play to lead the Skyhawks. She scored 25 points against Southeast.

Guard Jessy Ward averages 13.6 points and scored 17 points against the Redhawks. Myah Taylor averages 10, Katie Schubert 8.1, Chelsea Roberts 7.7 and Shy Copney, who scored 13 against Southeast, is at 7.0.

UTM's shooting 39.9 percent as a team from 3-point range in OVC play and 44.4 percent from the floor. The Skyhawks made 12 of 28 3-pointers against the Redhawks. They're averaging 13.8 made 3s over the last five games and are 49.6 percent from beyond the arc.

"I think if you can make them just have to score in their half-court for the majority of the game. They are so good at scoring off turnovers, and when they do that, they just get in such a great flow," Patterson said. "Then, you've got their ability to shoot the 3. You're going to have to do your best to limit those, and it's really difficult to do. You've got to limit those, so that means you're going to be giving up something. Then you've got to take care of the basketball and [have good] shot selection. Shot selection is going to be really important. Not just turnovers but shot selection, because poor shot selection can turn into an easy 6 to 9-0 run for them."

Hackmann redshirting

Southeast will get senior guard Olivia Hackmann back for another season.

Hackmann has been sidelined with a Jones fracture in her foot for the last 15 games, but she will receive a medical redshirt and return to the squad next year.

She scored in double figures in each of the Redhawks' first nine games this season and led the Southeast in scoring, averaging 16.4 points per game to start the season. Her last game was Dec. 4 vs. Wichita State.

"We're excited about her coming back and her being a part of the program again," Patterson said.