Progress paused: Southeast men's basketball fell short of goals

For the third year in a row the Southeast Missouri State University men's basketball team earned a spot in the Ohio Valley Conference tournament. The Redhawks were also knocked out of the tournament in the quarterfinals for the third year in a row.

The Redhawks' tournament ended with an 84-69 loss to Eastern Kentucky on Thursday.

"We wanted to have that championship and anytime the championship goes [to another team], you underachieved," Southeast senior Marland Smith said.

Belmont won the OVC tournament in its first season in the conference. The Bruins defeated 3-time defending champion Murray State 70-68 on Saturday.

In Southeast's quarterfinal game against the Colonels it struggled from 3-point range, shooting just 20.8 percent. The Redhawks shot 38.9 percent from the floor.

The Redhawks led four times in the first half, by as many as five points, but went into half trailing 39-31 and trailed for the rest of the game.

"In the second half we became rattled and didn't handle the ball as good as we felt like we needed to and didn't hit the shots that we've been hitting over the course of the last eight or nine games, and so that was the difference in the game," Southeast coach Dickey Nutt said. "We were very, very disappointed about that because we felt that we were good enough to win and to win that tournament. All in all, we're disappointed."

Southeast defeated Eastern Illinois 78-68 in the first round of the Ohio Valley Conference tournament on March 6 at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium. Photo by Alyssa Brewer

Southeast finished with its first winning record since the 2004-2005 season. The team had two more wins than last year with a record of 17-16, but were only 8-8 in the OVC, one fewer win than last year. The team finished second in the OVC West Division.

"We had high expectations as a staff and as a team. Our personal goals were much higher. They were to win our conference and be in the NCAA tournament and win 20 games. We fell short of that," Nutt said. "However, we were able to have a winning season and land second in our [division in] conference and do some things that we've never been able to do here at Southeast Missouri or in a long time. In that aspect of it, we feel good about some of the accomplishments we've made."

Senior guards Corey Wilford, Nick Niemczyk and Smith will not return next season.

These three were a big part of Southeast's surge late in the season, specifically their 3-point shooting. Smith made 31 3-pointers, Wilford connected on 25 and Niemczyk had 18 over Southeast's final eight games.

"They're going to be hard to replace but with good recruiting we're going to be able to replace them," Nutt said about the three seniors. "Those guys can really shoot the basketball. We didn't shoot very well until later in the year, but we ended up fifth in the nation in 3-point shooting, and it's largely because of those guys right there because they shoot the ball very, very well. I'm really proud of those guys."

The strong shooting by the Redhawks later in the season helped them win five of their last seven regular season games with all five wins coming against OVC opponents. They were 3-7 in the OVC prior to that span.

"We felt like a lot of guys wasn't playing with their heart and giving everything each game, myself included," Smith said. "So basically one day instead of practice we went out as a team and went bowling and ever since that day the cohesiveness has been real great, and that's when we finally started playing well as a team."

Southeast had a four-game conference losing streak and a three-game conference losing streak with only one win in between throughout January.

"After a couple of losses in a row we came back and we had a very hard practice on a Sunday, but we usually don't practice on Sunday," Nutt said. "And then on Monday our guys thought that we were going to just absolutely kill them again and I decided to change that up and decided to take our team bowling."

Southeast defeated Eastern Illinois 78-68 in the first round of the Ohio Valley Conference tournament on March 6 at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium. Photo by Alyssa Brewer

Nutt said it was the first time he had seen his players smile in a few weeks.

"From that point on it's almost like we held hands and became a unit and became a better basketball team and that kind of sparked us," Nutt said. "We came back and won the next games, and won the next one and the next one, and we just kept winning and it all went back to that day of bowling where we had a day just to socialize with each other and put down the whistle and put down the basketball and go do something different. I think it had a lot to do with the turnaround of our season."

Although the Redhawks were unable to win the OVC tournament and earn a berth to the NCAA tournament, Nutt said the team still might have a chance to compete in another tournament this season: the Collegeinsider.com Tournament.

"The CIT tournament is interested in us and they've looked at our record and we're second in the league, we're the number one defensive team in the league, we're the number two offensive team in the league with a lot of our guys being underclassmen, we're on the board," Nutt said. "They're going to make the decisions this week so there is an outside chance that we could play in that tournament if they choose to choose us, and we will be ready to go. Our goal is always set on the NCAA tournament and the NIT, especially the NCAA tournament. Obviously postseason is postseason and it's prestigious, so we're just waiting to cross that bridge when it comes."

If they're not chosen for the postseason tournament, Southeast will have to wait until next year to progress under Nutt. Nutt mentioned juniors Tyler Stone, A.J. Jones, Lucas Nutt and Michael Porter, sophomore Nino Johnson, freshman Jared White and Auburn transfer Josh Langford and Central Florida transfer Wayne Martin, Jr. as being players that will help the Redhawks improve.

"He's definitely improved the program each year, you can see that in the records. I mean we haven't won a lot of games, but each year the winning's increased and we made it to the tournament each of the last three years," Smith said about Dickey Nutt. "He's definitely moving the program in the right direction."

Smith believes that Southeast could be successful enough next year to receive the No. 1 or No. 2 seed in the OVC tournament.

"That's the kind of team coach Nutt is building the program in the right direction and the guys that are coming back are really starting to buy into that," Smith said. "The improvement toward the end of the season, everyone was starting to buy into what he was saying and that's what's going to help them out a lot next year."

Southeast actually finished the year where they were predicted in the preseason poll. The Redhawks were picked to finish second in the OVC West Division behind Murray State.

"I think we're in the position to really make some noise next year," Dickey Nutt said. "Expectations are going to be high again. I think they'll predict us either first or second next year and so we just want to live up to our expectations and exceed those."