Big games still ahead

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We have two big games at the Show Me Center this week and you can really help our basketball program by attending. Our attendance is again tops in the Ohio Valley Conference and, in what has been a rough year, our fans have continued to turn out.

On Thursday we face the first-place team in the OVC, Tennessee Tech. They have an outstanding team that appears to be head and shoulders above the other league teams.

Tech has a dominant player in 6-foot-8 Damien Kinloch, a transfer from South Carolina who averages 17.1 points and 9.4 rebounds per game. It is an excellent basketball team, but can be beaten, and if we can do some things, we can pull off the upset with your enthusiastic support.

On Saturday, Austin Peay will be in town for a 1 p.m. game that will be televised throughout the southern United States on Fox Sports Net South. The telecast will go into more than 11 million homes.

Any television exposure is important for a basketball program. Our recruits will be watching and it is important for us to play well and win the game. It is also important to show the television audience what a great facility we have at the Show Me Center and how great our fans are.

I want you to know that I really appreciate your attendance at our games, and our basketball team appreciates you. Let's join together and make it a great week at the Show Me Center.

I'm encouraged by our performance Saturday night at Murray State. We had a poor performance at Tennessee-Martin on Thursday, but our team bounced back and played well at Murray State. We fell behind by 10 points in the first half but we bounced back and trailed by only one at the half.

Murray State held on and won, but our team played probably its best game of the season.

We came back with a good practice Monday, and that is important. I knew we were in trouble at Tennessee-Martin because we did not have a good practice the day before the game. We did not have a spirited practice and we continually turned the ball over, which shows a lack of mental preparation. I didn't think our players were mentally ready to get a win on the road and they didn't. We had one of our poorest performances of the season at Martin.

We need good practices the rest of this week so we can be ready for Tennessee Tech and Austin Peay.

I appreciate your continued support. It has been a tough year, but our team continues to battle and, with your help, good things can still happen.

Gary Garner is the basketball coach at Southeast Missouri State University