Gonner attracts a crowd at N. Texas

Southeast Missouri State University will be playing a long way from Cape Girardeau tonight, but the team's leading scorer figures to have his own personal cheering section for the game against North Texas.

Dainmon Gonner, a senior forward, grew up in Fort Worth -- which is about a 35-minute drive from the North Texas campus in Denton. Southeast (3-5) and the Mean Green (5-3) square off at 7 p.m.

"I'm ready. I can't wait," said a grinning Gonner. "When I saw this game on the schedule, I marked in on the calendar right away."

Gonner said he expects upwards of 40 family members and friends to be in attendance at the Super Pit. Each player is allowed four complimentary tickets and Gonner has pretty well gobbled up all of his teammates' extras.

"Nobody else will have people there, so I've got all their tickets," Gonner said. "I've got 42 people on the list."

As an added bonus, Gonner -- whose brother Ricardo Smith is a sophomore football player at North Texas and will be at tonight's game -- will also be able to spend Christmas with his family in Fort Worth.

Following tonight's contest, Southeast doesn't play again until Dec. 29 and the players will be given several days off for the holidays before resuming practice on Sunday. So Gonner will simply remain in Texas before returning to Cape Girardeau this weekend.

"It works out real good for me, getting to stay there over Christmas," Gonner said.

Making the holidays even better for Gonner -- who is averaging 20.8 points per game to lead the Ohio Valley Conference -- would be a victory over a solid North Texas squad.

Last year, in the first-ever meeting between the programs, Southeast rallied from an 11-point halftime deficit to prevail 75-68 at the Show Me Center.

"They've got a nice team, real athletic," Gonner said. "We had to come back to beat them last year and it's going to be tough to beat them at their place, but if we play good, we can do it."

The Mean Green, who have been picked to finish high in most Sun Belt Conference preseason polls, rank second in the league in scoring with an average of nearly 80 points per game and they average nearly eight made 3-pointers per contest.

Among the Mean Green's losses were setbacks at 15th-ranked Texas and No. 19 Alabama, while the other defeat was to a 6-4 TCU squad.

"They're very athletic, probably one of the more athletic teams we'll play all season," Southeast coach Gary Garner said. "They shoot the ball quick and they shoot a lot of threes. We have to get those threes stopped."

Southeast, which will shoot for its first road win of the season, figures to at least have some confidence following Saturday's impressive performance during a 72-68 home loss to Southern Illinois.

"That game shows that we can play with a lot of good teams," said senior forward Reggie Golson, Southeast's second-leading scorer at 15.3 points per game who averages a team-high eight rebounds to rank fourth in the OVC.

Garner will continue to go with a smaller, three-guard lineup following the loss of starting center Ketshner Guerrier to a knee injury that has him sidelined indefinitely. The 6-foot-7 Golson and the 6-6 Gonner are Southeast's only true inside players who figure to receive substantial minutes for the time being and possibly for the season.

"We have known from day one that we're a better offensive team with Reggie in the post, and now we really have no choice," Garner said. "I'm not worried about us offensively. We've got guys who can score.

"The key will be how we defend and rebound, and we don't have much depth up front. But now we know what direction we're going. If we could get a little better rebounding and defensively, we can have a good year in our league."