COLLEGE BASKETBALL: MCCUTHISON RACKS UP HIS SECOND SE SLAM DUNK TITLE

Emmanual McCuthison was a gracious winner Saturday afternoon as he once again proved to be the best dunker among Southeast Missouri State University's basketball Indians.

"Honestly, I think Tim (Scheer) should have won it," said McCuthison.

And Scheer did provide plenty of competition, but McCuthison won the Indians' slam-dunk contest for the second straight year as Southeast held its Red vs. Black intrasquad game at the Show Me Center.

Nearly 500 fans turned out to watch several events in addition to the Indians' game-type scrimmage.

Along with the slam-dunk contest, there were three 3-point shooting contests: one for the Southeast men, one for the Southeast women and an overall competition. The women's squad was also introduced to the fans along with the men, although the Otahkians did not scrimmage.

McCuthison, a 6-foot-4 senior forward who is in his second season with the Indians, had by far the day's most spectacular jam, which came prior to the finals. He leaped over a ball rack to throw down a dunk, which had the crowd on its feet.

"It was a last-minute, spur of the moment thing," said a grinning McCuthison. "I decided to go over something."

Several other players also had impressive slams, including Damarcus Hence and Scheer. McCuthison did two fairly routine dunks -- for him -- in nosing out Scheer in the finals.

"I had some competition," McCuthison said.

Scheer, a 6-7 sophomore forward, not only finished a close second in the dunk contest, he won the 3-point competition with an impressive display. First, Scheer beat McCuthison in a sudden-death shootout in the men's final, then he drilled 14 out of 17 over the 30-second time limit to defeat Christine Rathke for the overall title.

"Tim can really shoot the ball," said Southeast coach Gary Garner.

Rathke, a freshman guard for the Otahkians, also put on an impressive shooting display in winning the women's 3-point contest. She drained 13 out of 16 in 30 seconds to beat Jennifer Gries in the finals.

As for the Red vs. Black portion of the event, the Indians played three 10-minute games, with different player combinations in each game.

While there were plenty of rough moments, Garner came away generally pleased with the way things went.

"For having only practiced two weeks, it went better than I expected," he said. "Our offense looked better than I thought it would for this time of the year, but we have a long way to go."

As expected, the Indians' returning players looked solid, and some newcomers also showed that they could be major factors, including Terry Rogers, a muscular 6-foot-10, 280-pound junior-college transfer.

"Terry had six rebounds in our first 10-minute scrimmage," said Garner. "He's raw, but he has a great attitude and he works hard. He'll be a factor for us."

McCuthison hit four 3-pointers and led all scorers with a total of 20 points in the three scrimmage games. Hence, a redshirt freshman forward with plenty of raw talent, had 12 points. Returning players Antonio Short and Nyah Jones had 11 and 10 points respectively. Short had the highlight play of the scrimmages, a one-handed monster jam as he drove the baseline.

McCuthison made it clear that he's much more excited about the Indians' upcoming season than he is about winning another slam-dunk championship.

"I think we're going to be real good again," he said.