Hoops HD

On Saturday Southeast Missouri State beat Tennessee Tech 89-82 in OT in the OVC tourney title game to earn an automatic bid to next week’s NCAA tournament. The Redhawks won 11 games in 2021 and 14 games in 2022 but won 19 games this year to claim the school’s 1st NCAA tourney bid since 2000. Yesterday HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with Southeast Missouri State coach Brad Korn about his own run to the Sweet 16 as a player at Southern Illinois back in 2002.

You played for Coach Bruce Weber at Southern Illinois: what made him such a great coach, and what was the most important thing that you ever learned from him? A lot of what we will do leading up to the Selection Show is what I learned from him. He was a genuine person who challenged us but treated us like the stars of the show.

In 2002 you made the Sweet 16 before losing to UConn: what is your favorite memory from that remarkable run? I grew up watching Michael Jordan so to play well in the United Center in Chicago with my family there in the NCAA tourney was pretty great. It was kind of a storybook situation back then: just walking in and seeing the Jordan statue was a dream come true!

You lost in the 2003 NCAA tourney on a Ricky Paulding FT with 4.1 seconds left and in the 2004 NCAA tourney on an Antoine Pettway runner with 5 seconds left: what makes the difference in March in games that come down to the wire? Everything in society is results-based: I guarantee that if you go back and watch those games you could find a missed FT or turnover. People focus on the final play but everything means so much in a survive-or-go-home scenario so there is no play that is too small. It can come down to “1 shining moment” but it is not just about the last possession.

As a senior your coach was Matt Painter: would it be a dream or a nightmare if you end up facing Purdue in a potential 1 vs. 16 matchup?! A dream if we win and a nightmare if we lose! The crazy thing is that when I was at Kansas State we were in Charlotte for the 8 vs. 9 game in the 2018 NCAA tourney when UMBC upset Virginia so I have seen the only #16-seed upset in tourney history.

In the 2016 NCAA tourney as an assistant to Weber at Kansas State you made it all the way to the Elite 8 as a #9-seed: what is the secret to advancing as an underdog? I do not watch a ton of NBA basketball but I have heard Shaquille O’Neal/Charles Barkley talk about how “The Others” have to step up. We had some of our non-stars do a bunch of intangible things during our conference tourney. The top guys will always get keyed on by the opposing defense so you need to get some good minutes from your bench.

Last Saturday in the OVC tourney title game Chris Harris scored 26 PTS en route to being named conference tourney MVP in a 7-PT OT win over Tennessee Tech: how were you able to stay focused after Diante Wood’s amazing shot to tie the game at the end of regulation, and what was the feeling like in your locker room after winning 4 games in 4 days? I give Dylan Branson a ton of credit. Some of our guys came back to the huddle with tears in their eyes because they thought that we had lost the championship on a 3-PT shot, but Dylan told them that we had 5 more minutes to live out our dream. It just speaks to the level of resiliency that our guys have. There is so much that goes into it with so many people from our families to our support staff. It was an extremely nice celebration!

Your school had not made the NCAA tourney since a 3-PT loss to LSU in 2000: what has the reaction been like since returning to campus? We had a great crowd come up to Evansville. I think a lot of people have been sitting around and waiting for it to happen again but it has been a long time coming. This region knows basketball so it is almost like a sense of relief and hopefully it will bring out a lot of people. Hopefully we can bust it open and stay on the map.

You had a couple of road losses in December to teams who will probably make the NCAA tourney in Missouri/Iowa: which of them impressed you the most? I have been impressed with Missouri all year long, as well as teams like Bradley/SIU. We played a challenging schedule and hit our head a little bit but it was a microcosm of how we played in the tourney. Coach Dennis Gates has done an amazing job with the roster he inherited while playing an SEC schedule.

You only have 3 seniors/1 junior on your roster: while your team has proved it is built to win now, how excited are you by the fact that most of them will be sticking around for the foreseeable future? That is how we constructed our roster. We lost 10 players last year and then 2 assistant coaches so we strategically attacked that. We also had a bunch of guys hurt this year who will help us next year so I think the future is bright. It is always nice to ask recruits if they want to join a championship-level program …and we can now say that.

What kind of seed do you think you deserve, and what kind of seed do you think you will get? They are not even going to look at our resume but I do hope that they look at our non-conference schedule. I am hopeful for a 14/15 but due to the metrics we will probably get a 16 seed, and maybe even a play-in game. The most important thing is that SEMO made the NCAA tourney. You saw that our kids do not quit and keep fighting so we will take this opportunity and run with it.