CHARLESTON, Ill. — If there’s been one thing you can count on for most of the past three seasons of Southeast Missouri State women’s basketball, it’s Adrianna Murphy walking onto the court and running the show for the Redhawks.
In Saturday’s 77-54 road win at Eastern Illinois, Southeast coach Rekha Patterson decided to make a tweak while sending a message: after 75 consecutive starts, Murphy began the game sitting on the bench.
“Each of our players have their roles in what we ask them to do,” Patterson said. “… We just felt as a staff, Adrianna was not fulfilling her role. We just thought we should make a change, and she responded well.”
Murphy has been one of the most important and exciting players to pull on a Redhawks uniform during her three years, but in the team’s recent run of games the junior has struggled with her consistency.
I think if you look at her numbers, it’s not about the scoring. It’s about the rebounds. You look at her defense in the fourth quarter when she wouldn’t let her girl turn the corner. That’s the Adri our team needs to have.
She continues to be one of the top assist getters in the Ohio Valley Conference, averaging 4.6 per game; the problem is she’s averaging the same amount of turnovers, putting up more assists than turnovers just three times in eight league games.
Her shooting has been up and down as well, including a 2-of-10 performance Wednesday in a loss at SIU Edwardsville.
It’s not that Murphy isn’t able, it’s that at times she’s tried to do too much.
It was the first time she did not start since the fourth game of her collegiate career on Nov. 20, 2015. Four days later she started at Western Illinois, put up 13 points and 12 assists and never looked back.
Until Saturday.
But the message did not go ignored. Murphy checked in with 7:13 on the first-quarter clock and her team down by four points, and four minutes later she found Ashton Luttrull for a transition 3-pointer for a lead Southeast never relinquished. The point guard was on the floor for all but one minute of the rest of the contest.
Murphy finished with 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting, pulling down six rebounds and dishing out four assists while turning the ball over just twice. She led the team in player efficiency metric, which factors in shooting percentage and turnovers along with counting stats.
It was a welcome return to Murphy at her best for the Redhawks.
“I think if you look at her numbers, it’s not about the scoring. It’s about the rebounds. You look at her defense in the fourth quarter when she wouldn’t let her girl turn the corner. That’s the Adri our team needs to have,” Patterson said. “I think it gets her going as well. Only two turnovers, and one of those was trying to hit a home run on a pass to a post player who wasn’t ready for that. I thought she responded well and it was just a matter of getting everybody to fulfill their role, and when they’re not we need to make some adjustments.”
Southeast also got a nice boost from senior Deja Jones in the post against Eastern Illinois, with SEMO dominating the proceedings down low.
The Redhawks out-rebounded the Panthers 51-23 and out-scored EIU 30-16 in the paint; 15 offensive boards helped Southeast out-score the hosts 14-7 on second-chance opportunities.
Jones was a major part of that. She finished the game with her sixth career double-double and second of the season, going for 12 points and a career-high 14 rebounds, including a game-high five offensive boards.
“Those rebounds were big. She went and got them,” Patterson said.
Following the performance, Jones now has 491 career rebounds, pushing her ever closer to the 500 mark.
“She’s close to the 500 rebounds career milestone, and when players are close to things like that sometimes they can play tight. I honestly think for about four games she’s been playing tight when it comes to rebounds,” Patterson said. “I hope this will help her relax and go out and do what she’s capable of doing.”
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