Southeast Missouri State women's basketball edges out Tennessee State in final moments to grab first OVC win

Southeast Missouri State's Tesia Thompson drives against Tennessee State's Tia Wooten during the second quarter Saturday, Dec. 30, 2017 at the Show Me Center.

Fred Lynch

The Southeast Missouri State women’s basketball team has been in close games this season, so when it found itself in another, Southeast knew what to do.

The Redhawks let a double-digit, second-half lead slip away, but tied at 66-all with 47 seconds to go, they made plays on both ends of the floor to escape a choppy, whistle-ridden contest with a 71-66 victory over Tennessee State in Ohio Valley Conference action on Saturday afternoon at the Show Me Center.

In a game that featured 56 total turnovers — including 15 traveling violations — and 46 total fouls, Southeast turned ugly into victory, getting game-winning performances from senior Deja Jones (21 points on 6-of-6 shooting, nine rebounds) and freshman Tesia Thompson (career-high 23 points, nine rebounds).

“It’s weird to say because the score didn’t reflect it, but the game felt good,” Jones said. “It was up and down, but it was a little scrappy. It was a little this, a little that.

Southeast Missouri State's Deja Jones pauses as she is fouled by Tennessee State's Tia Wooten during the fourth quarter Saturday, Dec. 30, 2017 at the Show Me Center.

Fred Lynch

“Our non-conference (schedule), we’ve been in games like that all year. I feel like that plays a big part of what we do now is because we learned from that. Now it’s conference time. We have to put it all together. I think it wasn’t that we didn’t get in a flow, but we were making the second effort, working together as a team, putting everything together.”

With Southeast (6-8 overall, 1-1 OVC) leading by eight points with 1 minute, 44 seconds remaining, TSU (2-9, 0-2) went on a 9-second, 6-0 run, getting back-to-back 3-pointers from Taylor Williams and Kaliya Griffin sandwiching a quick Southeast turnover to cut the gap to 66-64.

Then, with 47 seconds left, Tigers leading scorer Tia Wooten posted up and banked the ball in to knot things at 66-66.

But 14 seconds later, Thompson got the ball on the other end of the floor, drove to the rim and finished through contact, fouling out Asia Sims and giving Southeast the go-ahead basket.

It wasn’t the way the play was set up, but after a pass was deflected, the Redhawks regathered and Thompson still made a play.

“We wanted to get her the ball at the free-throw line so she could attack,” Southeast coach Rekha Patterson said. “It ended up I think the ball was deflected, she stepped back to the 3-point line and got it back. Tia Wooten was guarding her, which I’m sure is the matchup they wanted, and she did a great job of sweeping it and being strong and physical, right? She wanted it. I wanted to get the ball in her hands to go make a play.”

Thompson missed the ensuing free throw but scored her team’s final five points of the game to seal the Redhawks’ first conference victory. The guard scored 14 points in the fourth quarter to push her team ahead.

“I think I’ve always had that (mentality). I’ve never been afraid of anybody,” Thompson said. “I think that mentality that I have, that I’m not afraid, that’s why I’m confident.”

That confidence proved critical in a messy game in which Southeast couldn't quite shake TSU, despite the Tigers shooting just 8 of 31 (25.8 percent) from the floor during the middle two quarters. TSU finished the game 23 of 58 (39.7 percent) from the field and 5 of 17 (29.4 percent) from 3-point range.

Wooten finished with 30 points on 12-of-21 shooting, along with eight rebounds and four steals. Jaden Wrightsell posted a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds, as TSU was without second-leading scorer Taylor Roberts.

Southeast was 24 of 51 (47.1 percent) from the floor and 4 of 11 (36.4 percent) from 3-point range. The Redhawks finished 19 of 29 from the free throw line.

TSU took a 4-2 lead to begin the game before Adrianna Murphy drained a 3-pointer at the shot-clock buzzer to put the Redhawks up 5-4, with 6:52 on the first-quarter clock. Southeast never trailed again.

Murphy beat the clock again from long range, this time at the end of the period, to give the Redhawks a 20-14 advantage heading into the second quarter.

Southeast and TSU shot 66.7 and 70 percent from the field, respectively, during the first 10 minutes.

The second quarter continued a trend of sloppy play but fewer buckets, as the first four minutes featured more turnovers (10) than total points (seven).

Southeast broke a 3-minute, 36-second stretch without a field goal when Jones dropped in a layup at the 4:19 mark, giving the hosts a 25-18 lead during a quarter-closing 11-4 run for the hosts.

Less than three minutes later, Jones converted a pair of free throws and the Redhawks’ lead was double digits. They sat on a 31-22 edge at halftime.

The third quarter saw the Tigers struggle immensely shooting the basketball, but Southeast wasn’t able to bury the visitors.

Ashton Luttrull hit a 3-pointer from the left wing to give Southeast an 11-point lead, 47-36, with 2:10 left in the quarter, but TSU went 11 of 14 from the free-throw line to stay within punching distance. A 3 from Griffin in the waning moments cut SEMO’s lead to 50-42 entering the final quarter.

The Tigers kept pushing in the fourth quarter, but Southeast found a way to win.

Southeast Missouri State's Ashton Luttrull looks to pass against Tennessee State during the first quarter Saturday, Dec. 30, 2017 at the Show Me Center.

Fred Lynch

“We knew they weren’t going away,” Jones said. “... We knew they were going to come out swinging, and we stayed together as a team and were able to come up with the win.”

Bring a passport

When TSU came down the floor with 25 seconds remaining and a chance to tie things up in a 69-66 game, Southeast solidified the win in the most appropriate way possible — forcing a travel with ball pressure for a defensive stop.

It was a fitting close to a game filled with turnovers — 56, to be exact — including 15 traveling violations. There was so much traveling, in fact, one had to wonder if the game was being played at the Show Me Center or the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.

Southeast began the game with consecutive traveling violations, and four of the game’s first six possessions ended with someone illegally moving their feet. The first half saw 11 travel calls.

“We started the game with what? Two travels? I said (to the officials), ‘Did you guys look at film of us and see we travel a whole lot because nobody’s been calling this like this,’” Patterson said. “I know I got an email about a month ago, sometime in December, about officials will be looking at the ball-handler’s foot to establish if there are travels. I guess they watched that same video right before our game because, gosh, it was a whole lot.

“It made the game choppy. You could never get into a rhythm; never get into a flow. But you’ve got to keep your pivot foot down, and you can’t travel. This is not the NBA. We are not LeBron James. You can’t take six steps and not be called for traveling. I like LeBron, though.”

The game featured little rhythm, but that played right into the wheelhouse of a pair of teams in the upper half of the OVC defensively.

“It’s not fun to watch because there’s no offensive flow, but we’re defensive minded. They’re defensive minded,” Patterson said. “We want to make it ugly, right? Want to be physical, not give anything easy, so stuff like that is going to happen, I guess. But we may have set a record for turnovers between two teams.”

Up next

The win closed out 2017 for Southeast, which is back on the court at Murray State on Thursday. The road game tips off at 5 p.m. to begin a doubleheader before the men.

TENNESSEE STATE (66) — Jaden Wrightsell 13, Taylor Williams 3, Tia Wooten 30, Maxine Beard 9, Kaliya Griffin 9, Franceska Brown 2. FG 23-58, FT 15-18, F 26. (3-pointers: Griffin 3-8, Wrightsell 1-2, Williams 1-3. Fouled out: Asia Sims.)

SOUTHEAST MISSOURI STATE (71) — Mandy Madden 4, Adrianna Murphy 11, Ashton Luttrull 10, Deja Jones 21, Kaley Leyhue 2, Tesia Thompson 2. FG 24-51, FT 19-29, F 20. (3-pointers: Murphy 2-4, Luttrull 2-5. Fouled out: None.)