Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team rallies to defeat SIUE

EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. -- Rick Ray kept repeating the same phrase over and over.

"He was passing," the Southeast Missouri State men's basketball coach pleaded with the referee as SIU Edwardsville leading scorer Burak Eslik stepped up to the free-throw line during the second half.

After Eslik sank the first free-throw, Ray continued to argue the fact that he wasn't shooting. Ray said he never used a curse word, just kept repeating himself when he was issued a technical with 14 minutes, 35 seconds remaining.

Eslik made the other free throw for the personal foul and both technical shots to push the Cougars' lead to six, which was their largest at that point in the game, but according to Southeast guards Jamaal Calvin and Isiah Jones, it was that technical that provided the Redhawks the push they needed as they came back to defeat SIUE 58-51 at the Vadalabene Center on Thursday night.

"Coach, he goes to bat for us at any time," Jones said. "He felt like we wasn't getting the calls that we should and he voiced his opinion and it turned out with a technical foul, but it showed us that even though we're down and things aren't going our way, if our coach fights for us, we should fight for him and just give it our all, and that's what we did."

After Eslik's free throws the Cougars drained 3-pointers on their next two possessions. Then Southeast guard Antonius Cleveland was whistled for his fourth foul and an SIUE free throw put the Redhawks in their largest deficit of the night at 41-32 with 11:23 remaining.

A 6-0 Southeast run, which included Jones' only triple of the game, brought it within three, but the Cougars pushed it back to a seven-point game with a baseline jumper by Keenan Simmons and a pair of Eslik free throws.

Simmons' basket, which came with 7:52 remaining in the game, was the Cougars' last field goal until CJ Carr scored in the closing seconds once the game was out of reach.

The Redhawks' defense held SIUE to six free throws in that stretch.

After SIUE went up 45-38 with 6:49 left, Southeast scored nine consecutive points to take its first lead of the game since the 13:49 mark of the first half.

The Cougars tied it up, but junior forward Trey Kellum rebounded a Calvin miss on Southeast's next possession, scored and was fouled, eliciting a fist pump from Ray. Kellum, who finished with 14 points and seven rebounds, converted the 3-point play to put Southeast up for good at 50-47 with 2:08 left.

"We love it, and that's actually what gets us going," Calvin said of his coach's sideline antics. "They honestly look at me as the energy guy, but once we see him over there hype like that and the other assistant coaches, it gets us going. That helps us get stops on defense. We all get energized, we all start clapping on defense and we love it."

Cleveland drove and scored with a minute left to push the lead to five before fouling out with 42.6 to play. Eslik, who finished with a game-high 16 points, made both free throws to cut it to three, but the Cougars never got any closer.

Calvin made all six of his free-throw attempts in the final 41 seconds to seal the Redhawks' third straight victory.

Southeast, which shot 28.6 percent from the field, finished 23 of 28 from the free-throw line. The Redhawks made 21 of 25 attempts in the second half.

"I thought in the first half we tried to be pretty, we tried to like finesse them, and that's just not who we are or how we're going to be successful so I thought in that second half we came out on the offensive end and really tried to attack the basket and get paint touches," Ray said. "After I got the technical I just told our team, 'I want nothing but paint touches. I just want to be on attack mode all the time. We want to make sure we hold SIUE accountable and hold the referees accountable and let's get to that free-throw line.'"

Southeast was 8 of 30 from the floor in the first half and 2 of 9 from beyond the arc and went into halftime trailing 22-20.

SIUE's ability to alter shots inside caused problems early for Southeast. The Cougars finished with 10 blocked shots -- five in each half. Michael Chandler had eight blocks for the Cougars.

The Redhawks' defense kept them in the game. SIUE was 8 of 25 from the floor and 3 of 11 from 3-point range in the first 20 minutes. The Cougars finished the night shooting 32.7 percent from the floor and made 5 of 20 3s.

"Since we switched to man everybody's effort's just been phenomenal," Jones said. "Everybody's holding each other accountable. We say, 'If your man score on you, there's no excuse. We know it's you, plain and simple -- your man scored.' We're going to be on each other."

The Redhawks improved to 5-16 and 2-6 in the Ohio Valley Conference with the win, while SIUE dropped to 4-17 and 1-8 in conference.

Southeast hosts Austin Peay on Saturday. Tip-off is set for 4:15 p.m. from the Show Me Center.

"We're starting to feel good. We're starting to see the light in the tunnel," said Calvin, who finished with 15 points and eight rebounds. "It was a tough season so far, but I think since we've been man, we've been winning and we've been grinding it out. We also know it's going to be tough. We still have some tough games ahead of us but we're feeling good. We're having a more positive attitude coming to games. We know we need to grind everything out."