Southeast women's basketball team falls to Ole Miss on shot at buzzer

The Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team was about a second away from defeating Ole Miss in Oxford, Mississippi, on Tuesday afternoon.

The Redhawks held a one-point advantage and had the ball and no timeouts with two seconds remaining in the contest.

An inbounds pass to freshman guard Hannah Noe originally was ruled to have gone out of bounds on a Mississippi defender, but was reversed on the court.

The referees then watched the replay on the monitor, but there wasn't conclusive evidence to overturn the reversed call, so Ole Miss got the ball with .9 seconds remaining.

Senior forward Tia Faleru sank a shot at the buzzer to send the Redhawks home with a 58-57 loss.

"I don't understand it still, quite honestly, but that's the call they made," Southeast coach Ty Margenthaler said. "They called timeout. We had a chance to get our defense set. I thought we played it really, really well. They had to throw the ball across the basket. The big girl caught it, just kind of a 4 or 5-footer and knocked it off the glass at the buzzer."

The loss is the third in a row for Southeast (1-3).

"They were very upset," Margenthaler said about his players. "They were proud that they fought like crazy, but they were heartbroken because they know that we came less than a second away from beating an SEC opponent on the road. I'm just absolutely sick for them, but I am proud of them. That's a game where we will not see that kind of pressure for the remainder of the year, not even close."

The Rebels (4-1) opened the game on a 14-4 run, and led by as many as 12 points with 4 minutes, 1 second to play in the first half.

Southeast faced a 30-23 deficit at the break after shooting just 34.8 percent and turning the ball over 17 times.

"The one thing that they did that I asked them to do, and they did, is they competed," Margenthaler said. "They didn't get down. They didn't hang their heads. We could've easily gotten blown out. If they would've laid down, they would've gotten blown out. But we kept fighting, fighting, fighting, and got a chance to win the game."

Ole Miss extended its lead to 11 points less than two minutes into the second half, but the Redhawks went on a 20-8 run over the next 10 minutes to take their first lead of the game at 46-45.

The Rebels regained the lead four more times -- with one tie -- before Southeast took a 57-56 lead with 1:11 remaining on a layup by junior forward Erin Bollmann.

The Redhawks held Ole Miss scoreless on its next two possessions to set up the final play.

"What really allowed us to get back in the game was allowing them just one shot and out," Margenthaler said. "We were just doing a great job on the glass. We were keeping them out of the paint, they were shooting 15-18 foot jumpers. We were getting the rebound and coming down and scoring. Of course, it always helps when you score. We were making some jumpers, we got to the free throw line."

Southeast shot 50 percent in the second half, including 3 of 7 (42.9 percent) from 3-point range. The Redhawks outrebounded Ole Miss 42-40.

Senior guard Jasmine Robinson and junior guard Olivia Hackmann led the Redhawks with 11 points apiece. Senior guard Yelena Rosado had eight points. Junior forward Connor King had seven points and 11 rebounds, and Bollmann had 10 points, six rebounds and five steals.

"Erin Bollmann played just a tremendous basketball game," Margenthaler said. "I thought she was a huge spark for us, rebounding and scoring-wise. Connor, with 11 rebounds, I thought she just did a tremendous job of being disciplined and checking [Faleru] out and letting the other players go get the rebound."

Faleru finished the game with 15 points and nine rebounds, after entering the game averaging 22.5 points and 13.3 rebounds.

Southeast travels to Carbondale, Illinois, on Friday to face the Salukis of Southern Illinois.