Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team falls to EKU in first conference loss

RICHMOND, Ky. -- The Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team found itself in an unfamiliar situation on Saturday night at McBrayer Arena.

Sure, the Redhawks' previous three Ohio Valley Conference games had been fairly close in the final quarter, but didn't have down-to-the-wire finishes, and definitely not finishes that saw them lose a lead, because most of the time they'd been the ones making a second-half comeback or a rally in the fourth quarter.

Instead, Southeast saw a double-figure lead slip away in the final minutes and Eastern Kentucky took its only lead of the game with 15 seconds left for a 56-55 defeat of the Redhawks.

"It's been a minute since we've been like possession by possession at the very end, so this is good," Southeast coach Rekha Patterson said. "I told the girls, 'This is Game 4 of 16 in our conference season. We will absolutely learn from this.' ... Yes, you can do practice situations, but there's nothing like having to come out and execute against a team who is giving everything and they're not going to stop, they're not going to quit."

Southeast held a nine-point lead heading into the fourth quarter and led 55-42 on their lone 3-pointer of the game by Hannah Noe with 4 minutes, 57 seconds remaining.

The Redhawks didn't score again as EKU closed the game on a 14-0 run.

"They made runs and when it was time for us to execute we had the looks we wanted, we just didn't execute and they didn't fall," said freshman guard Adrianna Murphy, who finished with 10 points, six assists, six rebounds and four steals. "I think our shots were there and execution could've been there but we just fell short with that."

Southeast held a 55-50 lead and had the ball on the sideline with 1:29 left after a missed 3 went out on the Colonels. Murphy inbounded the ball and it was thrown back to her as she was stepping back in bounds, resulting in a turnover back to the EKU.

Guard Michaela Hunter scored to pull the Colonels within three and then Jalen O'Bannon came up with a steal and Alexus Cooper scored to cut it to one with 45.2 seconds left.

After a timeout, SEMO redshirt freshman forward Imani Johnson missed a look inside and the Redhawks were called for a shot clock violation to give the Colonels the ball back with 27.8 to play.

Hunter drove and scored to put EKU on top. The Redhawks took time with 13.4 on the clock and junior guard Bri Mitchell missed on the ensuing possession and the ball went out off Southeast.

After an EKU timeout, Southeast elected to foul. Hunter missed both free throws with 4.7 left and the Redhawks came up with the rebound but didn't get a shot off.

"I thought that Eastern Kentucky was a veteran basketball team and I felt like that last stretch they sort of made some seasoned and veteran plays and they were a little bit tougher in that situation," Patterson said. "We just needed to hunker down and play good defense and execute offensively, and I'll have to go back and look at the film and see if we got the shots that we wanted, and as I told the players this is on me. This is not on them. I needed to put them in a better position to finish the game."

Southeast held a 20-13 lead after one quarter and was up 30-18 at halftime. The Redhawks had nine steals in the first half and scored 14 points off EKU turnovers in the first 20 minutes.

EKU outscored Southeast 19-16 in the third and 19-9 in the fourth quarter. It had one steal and no points off turnovers in the second half. Both teams finished with 21 turnovers.

Southeast outscored Eastern Kentucky 10-2 on fast break points, but all those came before the decisive fourth quarter.

The Redhawks had 34 paint points compared to the Colonels' 22. Johnson had little trouble scoring inside and finished with a team-high 14 points, but didn't have a single basket in the fourth quarter.

"I felt like we could run on them because I've seen them on film get a little tired, and I think they did, but we weren't able to -- because of those turnovers -- take true advantage of that," Patterson said. "I thought in the post we would have an advantage even with O'Bannon, who's a really good basketball player. If you get her in foul trouble it makes her a little different, makes it a little easier for us to be able to score in the post."

EKU's 56 points was the first time it had been held below 60 this season. The Colonels averaged 73.6 points per game entering the contest.

Eastern Kentucky improved to 7-7 and 2-1 in the OVC. The loss snapped a four-game winning streak for the Redhawks.

"I knew they were a team that was not going to quit," Patterson said. "They have some pride. They were playing at home. They had just beat UT Martin, which when anyone in the conference beats UT Martin your confidence just shoots straight up, so I expected that. I hurt for our kids. I hurt for them because they really wanted to win and they put themselves in a position to."

The Redhawks (10-7, 3-1 OVC) return to action against Jacksonville State at home on Wednesday. Tipoff is set for 5:30 p.m.

"I feel like we did a lot of good things on the court, definitely," Johnson said. "This was more of a positive game than anything. We've just got to go back and practice and get better."