COURT SESSION: INDIANS GET SET FOR TWO MAJOR TESTS

Saturday was a good day for me and our basketball team. I had a chance to visit with my old high school coach, Jim Peters, and our team beat Austin Peay 73-61 before a crowd of over 6,000 at the Show Me Center.

Coach Peters had a tremendous influence on my coaching philosophy. He has a tremendous knowledge of the game and it was really good to reminisce with him about our days at West Plains High School.

He was a strong disciplinarian and that has stayed with me. A few years ago at a high school clinic, I called coach Peters the meanest man in the world when he was coaching. He later found out and called me.

I meant my remarks in the kindest fashion. Coach Peters was a great coach and he is a great person. It was great to see him and the other folks who made the trip over from West Plains.

They saw a good game. Austin Peay was our best offensive game of the season. We are continuing to improve on both offense and defense. I like the progress we are making, but like all coaches I would like it to happen faster. The important thing, though, is that we are improving in every phase of the game.

Kahn Cotton had an excellent game against Austin Peay on both ends of the floor. He scored a career-high 21 points and really shut down Joe Sibbitt, who hit his first three 3-point shots and then scored only two points the rest of the night. It was a great defensive performance by Cotton, who was selected this week as the OVC Newcomer of the Week.

I'm really pleased with the play of David Montgomery. He is our most improved player and is really showing a lot of improvement in his defensive work. Montgomery is getting more comfortable in our offense and he is shooting over 60 percent from the field.

With Montgomery and Bud Eley playing well inside and Cotton and Cory Johnson shooting well from the outside, we can cause some problems for teams. Calvert White is our best athlete and does a lot of things for us.

Nathan Owen gave us a big boost against Austin Peay by coming off the bench and hitting both of his 3-point attempts. I have to find a way to get our players off the bench more playing time.

Lakeo Keller is about ready to see more playing time. His knee is better and he is just now starting to get a feel for our offense because he missed so much practice time with his knee injury. A healthy Lakeo Keller will really help us.

The Tennessee State game on Thursday was a tremendous game that we could have won, but ended up losing in overtime 79-77. I have to give the Tigers credit because they really hit some big shots. I don't think I've ever been in a game where a team hit more big shots.

This week we have two big non-conference challenges on the road, Thursday at Southern Illinois in Carbondale and Saturday at Missouri in Columbia.

Southern Illinois is a good basketball team. Any time you can go to Virginia Commonwealth and get a road win, you've got a good basketball team.

Rashad Tucker is scary. He can do a lot of things and will really put pressure on our defense. He can shoot the three, take it to the hole and dunk and he penetrates and dishes off. Shane Hawkins and Monte Jenkins are both excellent 3-point shooters.

It will take our best effort to beat SIU in Carbondale.

On Saturday, we visit my alma mater at Missouri. The Tigers aren't playing as well as they're capable of but their losses are to ranked teams like Duke, Kentucky and Arkansas.

Missouri is a very physical team and their size and strength are my biggest concerns. We just have to go up and play as well as we can and see what happens.

Norm Stewart and I are very good friends, but it's never easy coaching against him. He reminds me often that I am 0-2 against him. At Drake, I lost to Missouri one year by four and another year by two.

It's a big week with two road games not that far away. I hope you can be at one or both of the games to help us out.

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