Semoball

Southeast Missouri State men's basketball shakes off two-game skid, drops SIUE on the road

Southeast Missouri State's Antonius Cleveland drives past SIU-Edwardsville's Burak Eslik during the first half Thursday, February 9, 2017, in Edwardsville, Illinois.
Trent Singer ~ Southeast Missourian

EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. — Southeast Missouri State men’s basketball coach Rick Ray used the word stagnant to describe his team’s offense during its most recent two-game skid, so the Redhawks found a way to manufacture some points away from home on Thursday night.

Southeast knocked down 27 of 36 free throws (75 percent) and held strong on the defensive end late in the game to secure its first Ohio Valley Conference sweep of the season, defeating SIU-Edwardsville 71-67 at the Vadalabene Center.

With the win, the Redhawks improve to 12-15 overall and 7-5 in the OVC. They are currently tied for first place with UT Martin in the West Division standings.

“I talked to our guys before the game and said, ‘Hey, you’re going to have to have some toughness here in order to win this game because they compete in every single contest that they’re in.’” Ray said. “It’s not just physical toughness. The physical toughness was us rebounding the basketball and us finishing at the rim against their size and athleticism, but he mental toughness for us is taking care of the scouting report and having the mental toughness to not make individual plays — passing the ball and sharing the ball.

“The biggest part of the mental toughness is to not get wrapped up in our record or their record and not being elite. You don’t want to be elite like that. You want to remember that this is going to be a grind.”

Southeast Missouri State's Daniel Simmons, left, and Denzel Mahoney, right, defend SIU-Edwardsville's Josh White during the first half Thursday, February 9, 2017, in Edwardsville, Illinois.
Trent Singer ~ Southeast Missourian

Denzel Mahoney drained a jumper on the first possession of the second half to give Southeast a 34-32 lead with 19 minutes, 44 seconds remaining.

The Cougars tied the game on the ensuing possession before Jonathan Dalton splashed in a 3-pointer from the left corner at the 17:09 mark to push SEMO’s lead to 37-34, and the Redhawks never trailed for the remainder of the game.

Trey Kellum hit a pair of free throws with 12:16 remaining to polish off a 9-1 run for Southeast, which built a 50-41 advantage. The Redhawks were unable to extend their lead to double digits but didn’t allow SIUE to draw closer than six points until the 4:40 mark when Burak Eslik knocked down the second of two free throws to pull the Cougars within 60-55.

Southeast countered with a 5-0 run and took its largest lead of the game, 65-55, when Antonius Cleveland hit a trey from the left wing with 2:57 remaining.

Cleveland finished with a team-high 19 points, including 13 in the second half alone. He was 7 of 11 from the field.

“The thing he needs to do is to continue to be in attack mode,” Ray said about Cleveland. “Sometimes I think he plays with the ball a little bit too much, but he just needs to drive the ball hard.”

Southeast Missouri State's Tahj Eaddy puts up a layup on the fast break against SIU-Edwardsville during the first half Thursday, February 9, 2017, in Edwardsville, Illinois.
Trent Singer ~ Southeast Missourian

The Cougars went on an 8-2 run that ended with 1:01 left on the clock, as Christian Ellis drove to the basket to pull the hosts within two possessions. Cleveland missed two free throws on SEMO’s next possession but hauled in a crucial rebound on a missed jumper by Keenan Simmons and was immediately fouled with 14 seconds remaining.

He connected on both of his shots at the charity stripe, as the Redhawks closed out the final seconds.

Southeast forced SIUE to turn the ball over 17 times, including eight in the second half that led to 15 points.

“We got like three straight turnovers and converted on all of them,” said Mahoney, who finished with a game-high three steals. “I think that’s what really helped us in the second half.”

In the first half, the Redhawks were steadied by Mahoney, who finished with 18 points to go along with eight rebounds and was 9 of 10 from the free-throw line.

Ray was mostly impressed by the freshman’s presence in the paint.

“He’s at a disadvantage sometimes in playing post defense because he’s got to front, so when you’re fronting in the post and the shot goes up, really the offense has the advantage,” Ray said about Mahoney. “What we need to talk about is, ‘Hey, you’ve got to find a way to still go get that rebound.’”

Southeast Missouri State's Trey Kellum puts up a shot over SIU-Edwardsville's Jalen Henry during the first half Thursday, February 9, 2017, in Edwardsville, Illinois.
Trent Singer ~ Southeast Missourian

The Cougars came out hot at the start, as Eslik connected on back-to-back 3s on SIUE’s first two possessions before hitting a third triple that gave his team a 18-4 lead at the 14:25 mark of the opening half.

Slowly but surely, Southeast chipped away at the deficit.

Mahoney converted a jumper that capped a 16-5 swing for Southeast, which pulled within 23-20 with 6:25 left on the clock.

A jumper by Jalen Henry and two free throws by Ellis extended the Cougars’ lead back to seven points before the Redhawks answered with a 10-2 run and took their first lead of the game on a 3 from Tahj Eaddy with 2:08 to go in the first half.

Cleveland slammed in an alley-oop on a lob from Jaylen Benton to tie the game at 32-all heading into intermission.

After falling behind by 14 points in the early going, Ray switched his players out of a man-to-man defense and into a 2-3 zone in the half court. The adjustment paid off for Southeast.

“We really changed some things up,” Ray said. “We talked about being in our 1-3-1 zone on makes, but you’ve got to [score] in order to get into that zone defense.

“The next part of that is we’ve just got to rebound their misses. When we do get a stop, it’s not a stop until we get that miss, and once we started rebounding some of their misses, then we were able to get out in transition.”

SIUE had a 24-13 advantage on the boards at halftime, but the Redhawks did a much better job cleaning up the glass in the second half. In the end, Southeast was out-rebounded 40-30.

“We just wanted to go and get it,” Cleveland said about rebounding. “... Coach understands it’s kind of hard to rebound out of the 2-3, but there’s no excuses.

“For the most part, we kind of emphasized on actually rebounding, and even though they got a couple offensive rebounds here and there, I think we kind of picked it up in the second half on the glass and did a better job.”

The freshman Eaddy finished with 14 points on 5-of-7 shooting, while Kellum chipped in 10 points and five rebounds before fouling out in the final minutes.

The Redhawks shot 43.5 percent (20 of 46) from the floor, including 30.8 percent (4 of 13) from 3-point range.

Henry led all players with 22 points and nine rebounds but was whistled for his fifth foul inside the final minute.

Simmons contributed 10 points and seven rebounds for SIUE, while Eslik finished with 18 points. After hitting his first three shots from long range, Eslik failed to connect on his final seven attempts.

The Cougars shot 40.7 percent (24 of 59) from the field, including 20 percent (4 of 20) from 3-point range.

SIUE entered the game second in the nation in free-throw attempts (672) but produced only 22 against the Redhawks. The Cougars finished 68.2 percent (15 of 22) at the charity stripe.

“One of our goals we talked about is making more free throws than the other team attempts. We did that again tonight,” Ray said. “You talk about the fact that they’re second in the nation in free-throw attempts — that’s a huge accomplishment for us.”

Southeast returns to action at 1 p.m. Saturday against host Eastern Illinois before closing out its regular season with three straight games at the Show Me Center.

“Toughness — to me, that’s all that matters,” Ray said. “We can’t worry about championships. We can’t worry about what Murray State is doing or UT Martin. We’ve got to take care of our own business, and for us, that’s game by game, possession by possession, four-minute war by four-minute war.

“If we lose that focus and start focusing on the big picture, then you lose the details. We’ve got to focus in on the details.”

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