COLLEGE BASKETBALL: INDIANS OPEN OVC WITH ROAD-TESTED EAGLES

Tennessee Tech men's basketball coach Jeff Lebo laughed when asked who was responsible for the Eagles' ridiculously tough early season schedule.

"I made that schedule out. How about that," said Lebo, chuckling again. "But we think it will help us down the road. We're a young group, with just one senior, and they're finding out what Division I basketball is all about."

The Eagles have been through a virtual torture chamber of tough road games already. They began the season with an eye-opening win at South Carolina, then lost three straight on the road, against South Carolina State, Chattanooga and Loyola-Chicago.

Tech followed by routing Eastern Michigan in its only home appearance so far. Then it was back on the road Tuesday night to take on nationally ranked Iowa State. The Eagles led the Cyclones by 18 points late in the first half before Iowa State rallied 89-74.

So it will be a battle-tested, 2-4 Tech squad that comes to the Show Me Center for tonight's 8 o'clock game against Southeast Missouri State University in the Ohio Valley Conference opener for both teams.

"They're not a typical 2-4 basketball team," said Southeast coach Gary Garner, whose defending OVC regular-season co-champion Indians are off to a 5-2 start. "When you can be ahead of Iowa State by 18 points, you have a good basketball team. And when you can go to South Carolina and win, you have a good team.

"I think they're going to be one of the better teams in our league this year and it's going to be a really tough first (OVC) game for us."

Garner likes the fact that the Indians are entering tonight's game with plenty of confidence after by far their most impressive performance of the season, an 87-84 win over Southern Illinois Tuesday night. That triumph came less than a week after Southeast had arguably its worst performance of the campaign during a loss at Mississippi Valley State.

"After the Mississippi Valley State game, we really needed a game like we had against SIU," said Garner. "That should really give us a lot of confidence going into this extremely big game."

Jeff Lebo, in his third season at Tech, last year led the Eagles to their best overall record since 1989-90 -- a 16-12 mark -- along with a tie for third place in the OVC.

The Eagles are once again expected to finish in the top half of the conference standings as they were picked to finish fourth in the nine-team league. Tech lost a strong starting backcourt from last season but returned most of its frontline, led by 6-foot-5 forward Larrie Smith, last year's OVC Newcomer of the Year and the squad's lone senior.

Smith, relentless on the boards, is off to a strong start, averaging 16.8 points and an OVC-leading 9.8 rebounds per game. He's shooting nearly 51 percent from the field.

"Larrie Smith is an excellent player," Garner said. "He plays a lot bigger than he is."

The Eagles' second-leading scorer comes off the bench in the form of 6-7 freshman forward Jason Harrell (11 ppg). Leigh Gayden, a 5-10 sophomore guard, is Tech's other double-figure scorer (10 ppg) and he leads in assists with 3.8 a contest.

Rounding out the Eagles' starting lineup are 6-6 sophomore forward Joey Westmoreland (6.8 ppg), 6-6 sophomore center DeAntoine Beasley (9.5 ppg, 57-percent field-goal shooting) and 6-5 sophomore guard Brent Jolly (7.5 ppg, 39-percent 3-point shooting).

Even though the Eagles lost their two starting guards from last year, Gayden and Jolly saw plenty of action off the bench as freshmen.

"Our guards are young, but we're pretty pleased with where they're at," Lebo said. "We've played against some great guards so far and we're going to see some good ones again (tonight).

"Going on the road, against the defending conference champions, it won't be easy. We've played in tough environments and this will be another one. But I know our kids will compete."

Tonight's game will be Southeast's only OVC contest until January. Garner has emphasized to the Indians how important it is to get off to a strong league start as they attempt to defend their regular-season conference co-championship from a year ago.

"If you're going to win the league, you have to win your home games," he said. "We need to win this game to get off to a good start in the OVC."