COURT SESSION: DESPITE BIG LOSS, SEMO SEASON FULL OF POSITIVES

We had one of our biggest wins of the season Saturday night when we beat second-place Eastern Illinois in overtime on the road, but we suffered our toughest loss of the season Tuesday night in the opening round of the OVC Tournament, losing at Austin Peay.

At Eastern Illinois, we were behind by 10 at the half, but I still felt like we were in good position to win the game. Cory Johnson's strong, driving shot with four seconds remaining in the second half sent the game into overtime.

We had lost four overtime games in the OVC this season, but our team came out strong in the overtime and came away with a road win over a very good basketball team.

Despite the win, we failed to get a home game in the opening round of the OVC Tournament because Austin Peay routed Tennessee-Martin to secure the fourth seed in the tournament.

Austin Peay entered the tournament after winning five of its final six regular-season games and I knew the Governors would be waiting for us because we had beaten them twice this season, including by 24 points on their home court.

Although it is tough to beat a good team three times in one season, I felt our team was playing well on the road and our players entered the game confident they could win and advance to Nashville.

Austin Peay is a veteran playoff team that has advanced to the OVC finals the past three seasons. The Governors came out with great intensity, particularly on defense, and really took it to us. They were really hot in the first half, hitting eight 3-pointers.

Our team played hard but really lacked the playoff intensity that Austin Peay showed and the result was a 44-24 halftime lead for the Govs.

I felt that we could still get back in the game in the second half, but the Governors pounded the ball inside early in the second half and quickly put the game out of reach.

It was disappointing to lose the tournament game by a 76-46 margin, but I don't want this single game to take away from the accomplishments of this team.

We finished the season 14-13 overall and 10-8 in the OVC. It was Southeast's first winning record and winning conference record since the 1992-93 season. This was one of our goals this season and the team played very hard to achieve that goal.

We did this despite losing All-OVC center Bud Eley for all but 11 games during the season. The loss of Eley forced us to change our offense during the season and, although we had some success when we were hitting the threes, we really missed his presence inside, particularly on the boards.

Our second goal was to get to Nashville for the OVC semifinals and we came up short, but not because of a lack of effort. It was particularly disappointing because we had a large group of fans make the trip to Austin Peay.

This is indicative of the great fan support we have enjoyed all season.

I think we have the foundation of a really strong program at Southeast. Our players learned this year what we expect of them. We expect our players to play hard and play together.

We are family.

Gary Garner is the head men's basketball coach at Southeast Missouri State University