COURT SESSION: INDIANS SAVOR VICTORY OVER SIU, PREPARE FOR OVC OPENER

We had a great win, 87-84, over a very good Southern Illinois team at the Show Me Center Tuesday night. It was a great game that had playoff intensity early in December.

Regional rivalries are special and the SIU game lived up to the billing. Both teams played with great intensity and enthusiasm and our fans were great. Our players fed off the enthusiasm in the crowd and that helped us hold on for the win late in the game.

After our disappointing loss at Mississippi Valley State last week, I felt that we were not getting enough penetration in our offense.

I visit often with Moe Iba, the former head coach at Nebraska and Texas Christian and the son of legendary coach Mr. Hank Iba, who was a great coach at Oklahoma State and led several Olympic teams. Moe was also an assistant for me when I was at Drake and he knows the triangle offense and how I like to play on both offense and defense.

I called Moe the day after the Mississippi Valley State game and we talked at length about how we could get more penetration from our perimeter players in the SIU game. Moe came up with the idea of moving our two inside players closer to the baseline and spreading out our guards. This clears up the middle of the floor and allows us to get penetration.

I thought we needed to get to the foul line more in the SIU game, and with penetration, we did get to the line 44 times. I wish we had made more of the free throws than the 29 we hit, but we did get to the line and that was a key in the win.

Our perimeter players had a great game, scoring 75 of our 87 points. That is a great accomplishment for Emmanuel McCuthison, Antonio Short, Michael Stokes and Amory Sanders, but we have to find a way to get better balance in our scoring.

We also have to do a better job rebounding the basketball. The smaller SIU team outrebounded us by 11 and the Salukis' work on the boards kept them in the game.

We had a 12-point lead at the half after shooting 75 percent from 3-point range, but I knew a talented team like SIU would make a run at us in the second half and they did.

I didn't think our intensity was quite as good at the start of the second half, but it picked up when SIU came back. During every timeout I stressed character and toughness.

I think SIU will win the Missouri Valley Conference this season and when they came back and took the lead in the second half, our team showed great character by bouncing right back to regain the lead. Our players did a great job of responding to the SIU runs.

It was a great win, but we face a more important game Saturday night when we host Tennessee Tech in our Ohio Valley Conference opener. We need to win this game to get a good start in the OVC.

Tennessee Tech is a good basketball team that beat South Carolina at South Carolina earlier this season. Tech led nationally ranked Iowa State by 14 points at halftime Tuesday night before eventually losing the game.

I have good friends on the coaching staff at Iowa State and they were really impressed with Tennessee Tech.

We will have to have the same intensity we had against SIU in order to have a chance to win our OVC opener. You fans were great Tuesday night and we need you back Saturday night to be our sixth man.

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