Southeast women face another uphill battle

The progress of the Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team under coach Ty Margenthaler hasn't always been easy to track.

There was the 2-22 first season at the beginning of a daunting rebuilding job followed by an encouraging 11-18 season in Year 2, when the Redhawks finished 5-11 in the Ohio Valley Conference.

They won just 10 games last season but improved to 6-10 in conference play, though they ultimately missed out on the OVC tournament again.

That left Margenthaler's program with the same modest goal for a fourth consecutive year when this season started -- the goal to finish among the conference's top eight teams and make the postseason tournament.

It looked like the Redhawks were taking another small step in the direction of being a competitive OVC team this season when they finished their non-conference schedule with a winning record for the first time since 2008.

Two games later, Southeast finds itself in an 0-2 hole in the conference standings.

"This is my fourth year. I don't want moral victories," Margenthaler said following his team's loss to Tennessee State on Saturday.

The Tigers entered the game 3-8 overall and with just one victory in six games on their home floor.

"We need to win," Margenthaler said. "Bottom line. We need to win. This is not excusable."

There is, of course, plenty of season left to go, but there already is some urgency.

Last season No. 8 seed Eastern Illinois finished 7-9 in conference play, meaning the Redhawks will likely need to finish .500 or better in their final 14 conference games to meet their goal.

"We always say this, but home court is so important," Margenthaler said. "If you can split on the road, you're golden, and [if] you can win at home you're going to have a great, great year. So now we didn't split, so now we've got to go home. And we've got to take care of home court."

The Redhawks will play four of their next five games at home against conference opponents. Morehead State, which also missed the conference tournament last season, will visit the Show Me Center on Thursday and Eastern Kentucky will be in Cape Girardeau on Saturday.

"The biggest thing with any team is just staying together, staying positive, talking the right talk," Margenthaler said. "It's going to start with our coaching staff to do that, and then we've got to have a really good week. The good thing is they're not in school. We're at home. Some kids can get in the gym and shoot a little bit more than they have, and this is the time we can do that."

The coaches spend about as much talking about the actions of players in between plays as during them.

Margenthaler said he address the mental side of the game "all the time."

While the execution was uneven during the Redhawks' first two conference games, so were many of their attitudes. That's more concerning because it's something the coaches and players should be able to control regardless of their opponent or talent level.

Margenthaler said his team got frustrated in the second half of a blowout loss to Belmont on Thursday, and junior forward Erin Bollmann said the team was "bickering" on the court. Saturday's game featured moments of great team support and others of juvenile pouting when things went wrong. Margenthaler said he talks to his players about those things regularly.

"No question," he said. "We have to because the body language is important. I know I'm an active, excited guy as well, so sometimes I've got to tell myself [to] watch my body language, too. If I'm preaching it, I've got to do the same thing.

"But I really did think, though, and we brought it up in our locker room, that our bench was very into tonight, which is good. They were very excited, really into it, and I liked that fact. These kids want to win, and we will. And I like our basketball team. I really do."

Margenthaler never backs away from his expectations for the team and usually is borderline apologetic when he mentions something that could be interpreted as an excuse.

It's an admirable and enduring trait, but none of that means much without some noticeable progress at some point -- without wins.

He knows that, too. The only question is if, and when, they will come.

"I want to win," Margenthaler said. "I want to get to the conference tournament. I think we've got a good basketball team. I'm not shying away from anything this year."

Rachel Crader is sports editor of the Southeast Missourian and semoball.com.