COURT SESSION: EXCITING TIME FOR SOUTHEAST BASKETBALL

What an exciting time of the year!

Our basketball team is headed to Nashville for the OVC semifinals and I believe we are playing our best basketball of the season. I think we have grown and matured as a team and we are ready to go to Nashville and give it our best shot.

As a basketball coach, I always start to get excited around the start of practice on Oct. 15 and then the entire season builds up to tournament time.

And now here we are just two wins away from a berth in the NCAA Tournament. Everybody is talking about March Madness and we have the opportunity to be part of it.

A win in Saturday's semifinals would put us on national television in Sunday's finals on ESPN. That would be great for our recruiting and it would be great for alumni and fans across the nation.

To achieve our goal of making the NCAA Tournament field of 64 teams, we have to take it one practice at a time and one game at a time.

We have to have great practices this week prior to leaving for Nashville Friday morning. We have to have a good practice at the Nashville Arena Friday afternoon and we have to be focused on Middle Tennessee.

The Blue Raiders are a very well balanced team with good size. They seem to be playing their best basketball of the season and they will be a very formidable opponent.

Down the stretch, our team has shown the ability to adapt to different situations. Our offense is really coming around and we continue to play great defense. Leading the OVC in scoring defense and field-goal percentage defense is quite an accomplishment.

I thought our tournament win over Eastern Illinois Tuesday night was our best game of the season. Everybody had one of their best games.

Mike Branson had an outstanding game with 17 points, Roderick Johnson had 15 points and 13 rebounds and Bud Eley had his usual dominating game of 17 points, 10 rebounds, three assists, three blocks and two steals.

Kahn Cotton did a great job of running the offense and Cory Johnson shot the ball the way he is capable of shooting. Our bench players all came in and gave us quality minutes.

I thought the spirit of our team really showed up in the final minutes when we had three walkon players on the floor and our regulars were cheering them on from the bench. This is a family.

The final two games at the Show Me Center were a tribute to our great fans. Again this season, Southeast led the OVC in attendance with an average of 5,023 per game. This is a great testimony to the loyalty of our fans. I certainly appreciate how our fans turn out, and believe me, the players appreciate it.

I really think that everybody who left the Show Me Center Tuesday night was excited about Southeast basketball. I know our staff, players and support staff are excited and you fans certainly provide the electricity that makes a Southeast game special.

I know a lot of fans are headed for Nashville and it will be great to see our fans in the stands at the Nashville Arena.

It's tournament time and we're in the hunt. I can't wait!

Gary Garner is the head basketball coach at Southeast Missouri State University. His weekly column is sponsored by Rust Communications.