Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team nearly pulls off upset of Missouri

The Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team gave the Missouri Tigers about all they could handle, and nearly defeated the Southeastern Conference foe for the first time in eight meetings.

The Redhawks never trailed in the first 36 minutes, 11 seconds, but Missouri (4-3) came from behind to pull off a 65-61 win at Mizzou Arena on Tuesday night.

"It just comes down to a few possessions -- a possession here, a possession there," Southeast coach Dickey Nutt said. "But the biggest thing is concentration at the free-throw line. You can't shoot 35 percent from the free-throw line and expect to win. You just can't. Bottom line. If you tell me that we're going to shoot 35 percent, I'd probably say, 'Well, we're not going to win.' Very seldomly you're going to win a game shooting 35 percent from the free-throw line."

Southeast's Achilles' heel remained its poor shooting from the charity stripe. The Redhawks were 5 of 14 on free throws.

Southeast, which held a 30-24 halftime advantage, led by as many as 10 points in the second half, but Mizzou used a 13-3 run that featured 3-pointers by Tramaine Isabell and Keith Shamburger to knot it at 42-42 with 10:38 remaining in regulation.

The Redhawks (3-4) regained a six-point lead, but the Tigers pulled even at 54-54 with consecutive 3s by Montaque Gill-Caesar with 4:57 to play.

Senior guard Jarekious Bradley split a pair of free throws to put Southeast up by one before Mizzou's D'Angelo Allen hit a 3 with the shot clock waning.

That 3-pointer with 3:49 remaining gave the Tigers their first lead of the game at 57-55.

Southeast then was called for a 5-second violation on an out of bounds play, an offensive foul that negated a basket and two turnovers.

Mizzou took advantage and extended its lead to five before Southeast junior guard Isiah Jones sank a 3 with 51 seconds left to make it 60-58.

Shamburger answered with another 3-pointer late in the shot clock on Mizzou's ensuing possession to push the margin back to five with 17 seconds left.

The Tigers were 6 of 7 from behind the arc in the second half, and shot 53.3 percent (8 of 15) on 3s for the game.

"For the exception of a couple, every shot was contested and almost blocked," Nutt said. "Desperation shots on their part with one second to go [on the shot clock], and for them to go in off the glass, that's just the story of basketball games. You've got to have a little luck. I've always been a big believer in that, and that certainly had a little bit of it. Regardless, it shouldn't have been that close. It went back to the free throw shooting."

Junior guard JJ Thompson cut the deficit to two again with a 3, but the Tigers sealed the win with a pair of free throws with 7 seconds left.

Southeast shot 47.2 percent from the floor in the loss. The Redhawks made 33.3 percent of their attempts from 3-point range. They made one more 3-pointer than free throws, going 6 of 18.

"We're going to have to change some things up in practice and spend more time, and try to put them in pressure situations. It's a concentration thing," Nutt said of the poor free-throw shooting. "*...But at the end of the day we're going to have to make some decisions. The decisions are if you can't shoot free throws then it's going to be hard for you to play on the floor because it's like a turnover to us. When you're in close games like that it's disappointing."

The Redhawks scored the first six points of the contest and led by as many as 11 points when Jones knocked down 3s on back-to-back possessions to push the lead to 30-19 with 4:19 to go in the opening half.

"I thought Isiah came in and gave us what we were looking for," Nutt said. "He hit some shots, defensively played hard. He did a lot of good things for us."

Southeast's leading scorer Jarekious Bradley led the Redhawks with 12 points in the loss. He sat out for several minutes late in the first half after picking up his second foul with about nine minutes before halftime.

Thompson finished with 11 points on 4-of-5 shooting along with six assists.

"Boy, he's starting to settle down and find his role on this team," Nutt said. "This is exactly what we thought he could do for us and I thought he played outstanding tonight. I thought he played well."

Sophomore guard Antonius Cleveland added 10 points, but was just 2 of 7 from the free-throw line.

Jones and senior forward Josh Langford both finished with nine points. Langford, who also had eight rebounds, left the game with a knee injury with 1:24 to play.

Mizzou was led by forward Johnathan Williams II with 18 points and 11 rebounds. Gill-Caesar had 15 points and Shamburger had 11.

Southeast will try to get back to .500 when it hosts Southeastern Louisiana at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Show Me Center.

"I was proud of them. I was proud of their effort," Nutt said. "They represented us well, and our state. They played with all their hearts. It was just a possession here and a possession there that meant the difference in the game. We've just got to bear down, focus and concentrate, and move on to the next one. That game's not going to make us or break us. It's certainly a good opportunity that we let slip by, so hopefully we can bounce back."