A complete team effort, heavy fan support and a fight until the final buzzer set the Southeast Missouri State men's basketball back into winning ways as they look ahead to Ohio Valley Conference Tournament play.

While closing games out has been an achilles heel for Southeast throughout a year of ups and downs, a fast start and a even better finish led to a 89-65 routing of Austin Peay on Senior Day at the Show Me Center.

With the fear of "win or go home" being eliminated following Jacksonville State's loss to Eastern Kentucky this past Thursday, Southeast was allowed to play comfortably and enjoy basketball, which to a convincing win for the Redhawks.

"It was real critical, we didn't want to just let Jacksonville [State] lose and hope we get in, we wanted to earn our spot," junior guard Isiah Jones said. "Coach [Dickey Nutt] kept saying, 'Don't give up, it ain't over yet we still got tournament play. If we win 10 in a row we're national champs, four in a row we're conference champs.' So we're just going to take it one game at a time and that was a big critical win that gave us momentum going into the [OVC] tournament."

Jones accumulated 16 points on 45 percent field goal shooting and hit four of his seven 3-point attempts.

The momentum was in the favor of Southeast throughout the entire game as they converted double the amount of 3-pointers as Austin Peay, won the turnover battle and outrebounded the Governors 40-36.

The Redhawks went into the half with a 14-point cushion and throughout the remainder of the game they maintained the double-digit lead, which got as high as 29 points.

The crowd provided a round of applause for the Southeast seniors after the game for all of their time and effort as a Redhawk, which included forward Nino Johnson, guard/forward Jarekious Bradley, guard Josh Langford and forward Aaron Adeoye.

Continuous efforts from freshman guard sensation Marcus Wallace was displayed throughout the game.

Wallace led the team in steals with five and assists with five while sharing the rebound lead with seven in addition to his 10 points.

"Talking about a most valuable player, that's Marcus Wallace because everyone wants to play to his level," Nutt said "The hustle plays he had were unbelieveable, the breakaway lay-ups and he's running people down stealing the ball, getting his hand seems like on every pass. I was so proud of him and our team goes to another level when he played with that type of effort."

While Wallace will be returning for next year's season, the performance of Bradley off the bench for Southeast played a major role in the explosive offensive production.

Bradley's 28 points on 11-18 shooting from the field and 57 percent from three-point range led to an individual achievement of 1,008 total points for his two-year career with Southeast.

"I just wanted to go out with a bang," Bradley said. "That's all I wanted to do. Put on a show for the home crowd."

While Bradley remained modest about his performance tonight and throughout his career at Southeast, Nutt commented on his performance tonight saying the play of Bradley was completely different and showed a sense of urgency.

The overall confidence for Southeast was present prior to tip-off and as a team it sent its seniors off with a victory in their final home game was a necessity.

Sophomore guard Antonius Cleveland commented on the mindset of the team prior to knowing Jacksonville State lost was that they had to win this game due to knowing how important it was for seniors and how critical it was to go into the conference tournament on a positive note.

Cleveland provided 10 points, six rebounds and three assists in the final regular-season game.

The Redhawks have taken into consideration that they have been winning most of their game at halftime and that it's the last ten minutes of the second half that seems to be the reason they have lost some late leads.

Nutt elaborated that the team's focus for the last 72 hours has been on how to finish a game, particularly in the last ten minutes.

Even when a cushion is provided, careless plays are not acceptable and will be followed by constructive criticism from both the coaches and players.

Nutt provided compliments on the team's overall play from every aspect of the game such as blocking out to set the correct and legal screen and to getting the next man open for a better shot.

With Southeast being the eighth seed in the OVC Tournament, it will face fifth seeded Morehead State at 6 p.m. on March 4 in Nashville, Tennessee.