Josh Mlot is the sports editor of semoball.com and the Southeast Missourian. He is a graduate of Miami (Ohio) University and has spent the last eight years covering high school and college sports in Pennsylvania and Mississippi. Missouri is the seventh different state he has called home. If you ask him where he's from, the answer is, "all over the place."

Josh has covered legends like Joe Paterno, Hall of Famers like Brett Favre, future-pros like Matt Adams (when he was just an amateur with local tall tales about his ability to hit the stitches off a baseball) and multiple All-Americans. He has covered undefeated teams and winless teams; budding prospects and total busts.

Now, the land of semoball.

My first look at Southeast Missouri State men's basketball

Posted Monday, November 30, 2015, at 10:06 AM

It's natural that for a while I'm going to encounter a lot of firsts on the job. Of the 'firsts' that I can already check off my bucket list after two and a half weeks, some (among many) include first blog, first feature story, first game story, first error in print and first Semoball.com commentary banter. Thanks for helping me get that out of the way.

Over the weekend I added to that list with my first Southeast Missouri State men's basketball game.

The first few weeks of the season have not been pretty for the Redhawks. So far, it portends a long season ahead. On Saturday, the team opened up its home schedule against Loyola Marymount and, as has been the way so far this season, lost.

It wasn't a disastrous performance, but the simple fact was SEMO was not good enough in any area to find a way to win. And those many little deficits add up.

After the 73-60 loss, I asked head coach Rick Ray -- like me, in his first season in Cape Girardeau -- about the danger of finger-pointing and the mental weight of losing. He said it's something he worries about, but that "I don't think we're there at all."

Afterward, I wrote a column about my thoughts on the sluggish start to the season and the job that Ray has ahead. You can read it here: Early season struggles taking a toll on Southeast men's basketball team

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