Southeast Missouri State's Ray wants Redhawks to believe they have enough manpower for job

Southeast Missouri State men's basketball coach Rick Ray realized something he needed to address with his team while watching his former boss, coach Brad Brownell, and Clemson upset Duke on Wednesday.

"They've got to understand there's a lot of teams, regardless of what their roster is, that only play six or seven guys," Ray said. "It's not uncommon. Now, they're not forced to play six or seven guys, but they're playing six or seven guys with a full roster, so the minutes there is not a problem."

The Tigers and Blue Devils each used seven players, with five on each side playing 30 or more minutes, and Ray wants his Redhawks to understand that although they have just eight players available, that's not the big issue.

As the Redhawks head into Saturday's 7:30 p.m. contest against Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, Tennessee -- their final game against an Ohio Valley Conference East Division opponent -- Ray is concerned less about the Golden Eagles, who are 12-6 and off to a 4-1 start in conference, and more about whether his team can come out with some fire.

"To me all of that is immaterial if our team doesn't play with energy," Ray said after giving an evaluation of TTU. "Right now our biggest opponent is ourselves, so we've got to give ourself a chance to be successful, and the only way we do that is if we go out and we play with an immense amount of energy because we're just simply not as talented as some of these other teams, and in order for us to match their talent it's got to come from a toughness standpoint, an energy standpoint, some intangibles to try to put us in a way to be competitive with these teams."

Southeast, which dropped to 2-15 and 0-5 in the OVC with a 74-60 loss to Jacksonville State on Wednesday, will be without leading scorer and rebounder Antonius Cleveland for the second straight game with a right wrist injury. His absence didn't help the confidence of the Redhawks.

"I think our mentality going into that game with not having Antonius, I don't know if our guys believed that we could win that game without him," Ray said. "If we don't have enough belief that we can be competitive without him, then we have no chance of winning."

The Redhawks are averaging 66 points per game over their last four OVC contests. They shot 42.9 percent from the field in their last outing, but have struggled to consistently finish in the paint.

"Only thing that you can do is continue to drill," Ray said. "You've just got to set your guys up for success, so we've done drill after drill of finishing at the rim -- versus coaches, versus pads, versus ourselves as far as competitive drills finishing at the rim. I just think you've got to continue to put your guys in that situation. But at the end of the day, you can drill everything 'til the cows come home, but it's just so different when you actually do it in live play. *... Our guys have got to start feeling comfortable, but more importantly confident, of being able to finish at the rim because we're just getting a multitude of chances to get that done, and there's really no way for us to not take advantage of those opportunities because I don't know anybody that doesn't want to have chances in the paint."

The Golden Eagles are coming off their only conference loss, a 96-90 defeat at UT Martin on Wednesday. They're shooting 56.4 percent from the field in conference action and shot 62.5 percent in the loss to UTM.

TTU's OVC wins are against Eastern Illinois (94-84), SIU Edwardsville (86-63), Murry State (71-65) and Austin Peay (72-66).

Point guard Torrance Rowe leads TTU, averaging 17.3 points and 4.4 assists per game. He's knocked down 46 3-pointers (37.4 percent). He's also shooting 86.7 percent from the foul line.

Ryan Martin, a 6-foot-9 senior forward, averages 14.6 points and 7.7 rebounds. He's shooting 54.8 percent from the field and 80.2 percent on free throws.

Sophomore guard Aleksa Jugovic and junior guard Hakeem Rogers average 11.2 points and 9.4 points, respectively. Jugovic has drained 37 3s and Rogers has knocked down 33. Anthony Morse, a 6-9 senior forward, averages 9.2 points and 6.6 rebounds.

"Really impressed with their team," Ray said. "They have four guys that are averaging in double figures. Their point guard is really good, probably the most dynamic point guard we'll play in conference. The thing that I'm impressed with is their ability to feed the ball into the post. Their big guys do a good job of posting and sealing and finishing."