Stacker shines but Redhawks fall short against Skyhawks

MARTIN, TN — With the ball in their possession with 17.4 seconds left in the game, the Redhawks had their chance at a heroic moment to force overtime.

The ball went to the right hands, twice, but neither Rob Martin nor Teddy Washington Jr. could sink the three-pointer needed to tie the game at the buzzer.

“The possession before, we had Teddy opening up to the top of the key, and he swung it over, and Rob drove to the middle,” Redhawks head coach Brad Korn said. “So we kind of went back to that same play, and the way that they've been defending it, trying to get them to commit to the ball screen, then try to get a little pin down the middle of the floor. So with all their switching and everything, there wasn't going to be a whole lot that you could get outside of that.

“So we got two pretty good looks, and then when BJ (Ward) got the second offensive rebound, I tried to call time out to the ref, but he didn't give me the time out.”

Southeast Missouri State fell to UT Martin 66-63 to snap their five-game winning streak on Saturday, Jan. 4, in Martin, Tennessee.

The Redhawks had one of their better shooting performances of the season, making 10 of their 26 shots from the three-point line. They even made three more total field goals than the Skyhawks

However, the key difference was at the charity stripe. UT Martin made 19-of-21 free throws while SEMO attempted 13 shots and made seven.

Braxton Stacker led the Redhawks with a career-high 22 points on 8-of-13 shooting (6-of-9 from 3), including 17 points in the second half. Washington scored 15 points with a team-high nine rebounds.

“He approaches shooting the right way and he had really good opportunities there in the second half,” Korn said of Stacker.

The Redhawks never established a lead and spent the entire game trying to catch up to the Skyhawks. UT Martin’s lead grew to as much as 12 points late in the first half, entering halftime leading 33-23.

“We didn’t match the effort that it was going to require to not put ourselves in the position that we did,” Korn said. “We were too casual to start the game.“

The Redhawks came back to within two points during a 12-3 run in the middle of the second half based solely on Stacker making four consecutive three-pointers. However, even that wasn’t truly enough to close the gap.

Four Skyhawks scored in double-figures, led by Terence Guinyard’s 14 points and Carlos Cortijo’s 13 points. Valdimer Salaridze scored 10 points and grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds for a double-double.

This is a much different UT Martin team compared to the one that won the OVC regular season championship last season. The Skyhawks hired Jeremy Shulman, a longtime junior college coach at Eastern Florida State to replace Ryan Ridder, who took a head coaching job at Mercer.

With only one returner from last season, Shulman transformed the UTM roster into one that leads the nation in the number of international players, some of whom have previously played under him at EFSC.

“They’re an older, experienced European-type team,” Korn said of UT Martin. “They’ve been playing basketball for a long time so they were ready to go, and they’re on every mistake that you make.”

The Redhawks (8-7, 3-1) return to the Show Me Center for three games in six days. With a 6-1 home record, SEMO has an opportunity to stay atop the conference standings by capitalizing on this important homestand.

“I do think that the early wins gave our guys some confidence, which is nice to see,” Korn said. “We've been playing well at home. So to have three games coming back at home, we got to take advantage of that like we did the last time with the two before Christmas.

“Just because you're playing at home doesn't mean you're going to win. So I think every game in the OVC is going to be down to the wire and gonna be tight tough games, all throughout. So it's gonna be that team that rises above kind of some of the other stuff and can stay connected throughout the whole thing, and some level of toughness, and I think we have those guys that can do that.”