COURT SESSION: START OF A NEW SEASON BRINGS PLENTY OF EXCITEMENT

It seems like only yesterday that we were celebrating the Ohio Valley Conference championship in Nashville and playing Louisiana State to the buzzer in the NCAA Tournament. It was a great season!

We're going to take one last look at the 1999-2000 season prior to Friday night's season opener against Truman State at the Show Me Center when we present the team members their OVC championship rings and unfurl the championship banners that will be displayed at the Show Me Center.

Last season provided great memories, but it is now time to concentrate on what we hope will be another great season of college basketball at Southeast.

I'm like most college coaches at this point in the season. We all think our team should be performing like it is February instead of November. There is never enough time to practice everything we want to practice on.

I'm sure we aren't executing like we will by the time conference play rolls around and we will probably be inconsistent, but we will be playing to win. Our first two opponents are Division II schools who will look at the games as an opportunity to create big headlines by beating a Division I school that was in last year's NCAA Tournament.

We cannot take the games for granted. We have to be ready to play every night out. The exhibition season is over. Every game is for real now whether we are playing a Division II team or a nationally ranked Division I team.

I will play the people I think give us the best chance to win Friday night. We won't be playing some players just to check out combinations, we will be developing our rotation for the season and the rotation that we think will win for us Friday night.

We have been working hard on defense, because defense can really keep you in some games early in the season when the ball isn't falling and we aren't executing offensively.

Every team has a different personality and we should see that personality coming out once we start playing for real. Last season we had a really tough team. That came from seniors like Brian Bunche and Roderick Johnson, who were really tough kids. They were leaders who were physically and mentally tough and that rubbed off on the rest of the team.

I think this year's team may have better skills, but only time will tell if they come together as a family and become as good a team as we had a year ago.

We have great experience returning on the perimeter with Michael Stokes, Amory Sanders, Antonio Short and Emmanuel McCuthison all back from last year. Inside we have players who were backups last season. How well the inside players develop will have a lot to do with our success this season.

I may have overscheduled this team early in the season. After the two Division II games, we play in an eight-team tournament in Kansas City that is loaded with good teams. We open with a very talented Toledo squad that will be tough for us to beat and we could play Auburn, Creighton, Providence or any number of talented teams.

We have Southwest Missouri State and Southern Illinois at the Show Me Center in December and I consider them two of the top three teams in the Missouri Valley Conference this season. Our only OVC game prior to the first of the year is at the Show Me Center in December when we play a Tennessee Tech squad that could contend for the OVC title.

We also play at the Sun Bowl Tournament in El Paso right after Christmas. We open with Houston and if we are victorious we would likely play the tradition-rich Texas-El Paso team on their home floor.

We have our work cut out for us, but it is great to be starting another season of college basketball. I hope to see you at the Show Me Center Friday night when we honor last year's team and begin the start of a new season. I can't wait!

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