Southeast men's basketball team back on track with nonconference win

~ Lucas Nutt broke Southeast's career assists record in a 91-81 win over UMKC

After losing to Ohio Valley Conference opponent Eastern Illinois on Saturday, the Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team practiced for an hour and a half Sunday without a basketball.

"That's a miserable feeling, but those guys took it like men," Southeast coach Dickey Nutt said, "and I think that we are better because of it."

The Redhawks bounced back to defeat nonconference opponent University of Missouri-Kansas City 91-81 at the Show Me Center on Wednesday night.

Southeast improved to 12-10 overall and picked up its ninth regular-season nonconference win, which is the most since Southeast moved to Division I. It was also the 250th career win for Nutt.

Southeast Missouri State's Jamaal Calvin looks to pass against Missouri-Kansas City's Martez Harrison during the first half Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2014 at the Show Me Center. (Fred Lynch)

"After that last loss, Sunday and Tuesday we practiced pretty hard," Southeast senior forward Tyler Stone said. "We just wanted to get back to the fundamentals on defense with stuff we do like high hands and getting angles and closing out and stuff. The win has a lot to do with practice, basically."

The Redhawks' defense held UMKC to 38.1 percent shooting. The Kangaroos (7-13) did hit 11 3-pointers, which kept Southeast from running away with it.

Southeast threatened to extend its lead to double digits multiple times, but UMKC often answered with a 3.

With 5 minutes, 28 seconds left, the momentum shifted when Southeast took a 78-72 lead. Lucas Nutt made a pass to Stone for a dunk that not only brought the crowd and Southeast's bench to its feet, but helped Nutt break the career assists record at Southeast.

UMKC answered with a 3 but never got closer as Southeast outscored the Kangaroos 13-6 over the final five minutes.

Southeast Missouri State's Josh Langford dunks against Missouri-Kansas City during the second half Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2014 at the Show Me Center. (Fred Lynch)

Nutt finished with 11 assists to give him 544 assists in his career. The previous record was 541 and held by Dwayne Rutherford, who played from 1986-1990.

"I couldn't do it without my teammates," Lucas Nutt said. "I mean, these guys make it easy on me sometimes because I can just throw it in there to a guy like Tyler and he's doing hook shots, you know, scoring at ease."

Stone did score at ease, finishing with a game-high 22 points. He grabbed 10 rebounds.

Southeast shot 58.1 percent -- 70.8 percent in the second half -- and scored 62 points in the paint.

"That goes back to good shots. Not necessarily good shooting, but good shots," Dickey Nutt said. "I love the way our team has certainly bought into that all year long, really. There's no denying that we're not a great, great 3-point shooting team. ... I thought we had our way inside."

Six Redhawks scored in double figures. In addition to Stone, Josh Langford scored 14, Lucas Nutt added 12, Antonius Cleveland and Nino Johnson had 11 apiece and Paul McRoberts scored 16.

McRoberts was 6-of-6 from the floor and hit two 3s -- one with 1:43 left to all but seal the victory. He also had seven rebounds, a block and two steals.

"My biggest thing is my team believing in me," McRoberts said. "I'm a big defender -- everybody expects me to play great defense, and I love it -- so I never really think offense at all and they'll be like, 'Man, you need to attack more, you need to do this and do that,' ... I don't second guess it after they tell me. It's just, like, all confidence in the world because I know they got my back."

Noticeably absent from the scoring column was Southeast's leading scorer, Jarekious Bradley. Bradley did not start for the first time this season because of his sprained knee but entered the game with 14:30 left in the first half and played two minutes.

Dickey Nutt said Bradley came to him before the game and told him he was "feeling really good and he'd like to try it."

"As soon as he got in there and somebody got up under him, I kind of held my breath on that play," Dickey Nutt said. "I could tell he was a little bit out of sync. He hadn't practiced, and I felt like we were playing good without him and so I said, 'Nope, that's it. You wait for the next one.'"

That "next one" comes against Eastern Kentucky (14-7, 5-3 OVC) at 6 p.m. Saturday. The Redhawks will look to improve on their 3-5 conference record.

"We haven't done so well in conference play, but there are a lot of games to be played, eight more games to play," Dickey Nutt said. "Let's find out where we are in these next eight games. Obviously going to Eastern Kentucky is going to be a very, very big challenge for us. They are certainly living up to their billing, their predictions. They're good at home. We're not concerned about that. Put your blinders on, earplugs in and go play. If we play with the type of unselfishness that we played tonight, we'll have a chance every game that we play because we moved that basketball."