Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team snaps losing streak with overtime win at Wichita State

Coach Rekha Patterson and the Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team's eight-plus hour bus ride back to Cape Girardeau from Wichita, Kansas, on Friday night became a little bit easier after the first-year coach and her team snapped a three-game losing streak.

The Redhawks downed the Wichita State Shockers -- winners of the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season and tournament championship and an NCAA tournament participant the past three years -- 66-62 in overtime in front of an announced crowd of 8,474 for their "Schoolhouse Rocks for the Shocks" game, which included kids from area schools in attendance.

It was the second home loss of the season for the Shockers, who set a program record with 29 wins last year and were 16-0 at Charles Koch Arena.

"I don't know if our young ladies really understand how good of a program they have been," Patterson said. "What they do in the [Missouri] Valley [Conference] and getting into the NCAA tournament three years in a row, I don't know if they really understood that. I tried to tell them that we could not look at their record because their record is not an indicator of how talented they are as a team or a program, but I also didn't want to do too much to psyche my own kids out.

"For me as a fan of women's basketball and understanding the big picture, yeah, this is huge. This is big for our program."

The Redhawks held a 3-point lead in the final 30 seconds of the game, but WSU's TaQuandra Mike knocked down a game-tying 3-pointer with 3.2 seconds remaining to force the five-minute OT period.

Patterson stressed to her players that "we were exactly where we want to be," heading into their first overtime game of the season.

"The game is still going on. We have five minutes to come back out here and play with great effort and energy and intensity,'" Patterson said of her message, "and I thought our young ladies did it."

The Shockers took a 60-57 lead 1:31 into overtime on a Diamond Lockhart 3, but Southeast's Bri Mitchell re-tied it with a three-point play with 2:33 left.

"We talk about being 'Redhawk Tough' on the road," Patterson said. "Tough enough to see 3s go in, tough enough to maybe not get calls, tough enough to have calls go against you and you've got to be ready to move on to the next play, and I thought our young ladies did a good job of moving to the next play and not hanging their heads because something didn't go right."

WSU went up 62-60 before freshman guard Adrianna Murphy knocked down a pair of free throws to tie it and Mitchell put the Redhawks up for good with a layup with 42 seconds remaining.

WSU's Aundra Stovall missed a pair of free throws with 10 seconds left; Southeast redshirt freshman guard Imani Johnson got the rebound and was fouled before knocking down both free throws with eight seconds remaining to seal the victory.

Johnson finished with 14 points and 10 rebounds. She made all six of her free-throw attempts in the game to remain perfect from the line at 17 of 17 on the season.

"I think we have to remember that Imani is a freshman on the floor, and for her when she first goes in sometimes the game is going so fast in her mind and she has a hard time slowing down and she gets a little emotional," Patterson said. "But she's able to calm herself down and she went back in and she did exactly what we needed her to do.

"How about those free throws? There was no doubt in her mind or anybody else's mind that she was going to knock them down. So happy for her."

Southeast trailed 14-12 after one quarter. The Shockers took a 34-29 lead into halftime after Stovall knocked down a 3 as time expired.

After WSU went up by seven with a pair of free throws 14 seconds into the second half, the Redhawks went on a 12-0 run to take a 41-36 lead with 2:48 left in the third.

The Shockers snapped their scoreless drought with 2:24 left in the quarter with a pair of free throws. Their lone field goal of the third came with 1:41 on the clock, which cut it to 43-40.

Patterson credited her team's 2-2-1 press and 2-3 zone defense for keeping WSU off-balance.

"They're a bit of a rhythm team, but the 2-2-1 didn't allow them to just come up and run exactly what they wanted with all the time on the shot clock," Patterson said. "So they had to maybe rush shots or they weren't in rhythm like they would've been. That's what I thought the 2-2-1 did. And they didn't really attack it, which was good for us."

Southeast held a 47-40 advantage going to the fourth. The Shockers scored the first five points of the quarter as part of a 12-4 spurt that gave them a 51-50 lead with 3:05 left.

Patterson noted a play by Mitchell, who was playing in just her second game after missing three straight with a mild foot sprain, in the final minutes of regulation.

Mitchell drove baseline and missed a shot, battled for her own rebound and missed another shot, but Patterson appreciated, "just her toughness that she would not be denied."

Johnson came up with an offensive board and was fouled on Mitchell's second miss. She knocked down two free throws with 2:38 left in the fourth to put the Redhawks back on top 53-52.

"That sort of lit a spark in us that we needed," Patterson said of Mitchell's play. "Again, she's really good at driving and there were some lanes for her, and she was aggressive and she was tough and that was huge for our program. It was huge for the girls to see that they had somebody out there who was going to be that tough."

Mitchell finished with a team-high 15 points. Murphy had 12 points, seven rebounds and four assists and senior forward Olivia Hackmann had 10 points and six rebounds.

Hackmann did not play in overtime. Patterson said she's been dealing with foot issues and hopes to know more after a doctor's appointment on Monday.

Senior forward Connor King did not play due to concussion symptoms.

Southeast shot 35.8 percent in the game, made just 1 of 10 3-pointers and had 16 turnovers, but Patterson was impressed that her team still found a way to win.

WSU shot 40.7 percent. The Shockers hit eight 3-pointers, but shot just 29.6 percent from beyond the arc, and had 21 turnovers.

The Redhawks improved to 5-4 on the season and face Lipscomb at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in Nashville to conclude their six-game road trip.

"When you're on the road you'll take it by one, you'll take it by two, four, whatever it is," Patterson said. "You'll take a win even if it's ugly, and we're learning how to win. We're learning how to win the possession, win the moment, win the day, win the game. And when you come away playing a really good program and you knew they were playing at home -- there were like 8,000 screaming kids there, what an atmosphere -- they found a way to win."