DEFLATED INDIANS GET TIME TO REGROUP

Southeast Missouri State University's men's basketball team doesn't play again until Saturday and coach Gary Garner figures the week off between games will do the Indians some good.

Speaking at his weekly media conference Monday morning, Garner said the Indians need some time to regroup following Saturday's surprisingly lopsided 77-60 home loss to Murray State, which jumped ahead of Southeast into first place in the Ohio Valley Conference standings.

"I'm glad we don't play until Saturday," said Garner, whose squad will take on Eastern Illinois in a 7 p.m. tipoff in Charleston, Ill. "Our players are really down and our coaches are down. We need to regroup and this will give us some time.

"Our players have always bounced back in the past and I think we will this time."

Garner was again quick to credit the exceptional performance of Murray State, which had perhaps its best overall outing of the season in rolling past the Indians in front of the largest crowd to ever watch a basketball game at the Show Me Center (7,241) and a national television audience.

"We didn't play one of our better games, but I don't know if we could have beaten them no matter how we had played," Garner said. "They played the best game I've seen them play in the three years I've been here.

"If Murray State plays that way, nobody in our league will beat them. They were a top 20 team in the country (Saturday)."

Garner said he thinks his players let the pressure of the situation get to them, but he believes they can learn plenty from that contest for the future.

"I think our players really felt the pressure. Every player tried to do a little bit too much, every player wanted to score so badly," said Garner. "But we can really learn from this game, if we react to this game like we should."

Even though the Indians now trail the Racers by basically one game in the OVC standings, Garner pointed out that the league race is still far from being decided.

Murray State, 11-3 in conference play, has four games left. The Racers figure to roll in their final two home contests this week, against Eastern Kentucky Thursday and Morehead State Saturday, but the Racers could have trouble next week at Tennessee Tech and Middle Tennessee.

Southeast, 11-4 in OVC play, has three games left, all on the road, beginning with Saturday's tough test against third-place Eastern Illinois. Next week, the Indians close out the regular season against Morehead State and Eastern Kentucky, who rank ninth and 10th in the 10-team league.

"The OVC race is not over yet," Garner said. "Murray State is in the driver's seat, but they could lose one more or even two more. And we've got some difficult games left.

"The big thing is, we just have to take it one game at a time. We can't control what Murray State does, only what we do."

* Last year, the way the OVC regular season went, it would have been a huge surprise if anybody besides Murray State or Southeast won the league tournament. The Racers ended up hitting a shot at the buzzer to beat the Indians in the tourney finals.

But the above doesn't figure to be the case this season, because several of the squads after Murray State and Southeast are so much better than they were a year ago.

Eastern Illinois and Austin Peay are tied for third at 9-6, with the Governors having won five straight OVC games to rank as the league's hottest squad.

Tennessee Tech is fifth at 8-6 while Middle Tennessee is sixth at 7-7 as the Raiders have won six of their last seven conference games.

While the Racers and Indians rank as the top two favorites to win the OVC Tournament, those next four squads all appear to be legitimate contenders and all are very much in the running to finish in the top four and host first-round games in the conference tourney.

"I think five or six teams could win it," said Garner. "It's going to be really interesting."

Tennessee-Martin (5-8) and Tennessee State (5-9) are also in line to make the eight-team league tournament at this point, but Morehead State (4-10) is still in the running. Eastern Kentucky (2-12) is also still alive, but just barely.

* Senior forward Roderick Johnson has taken over the team scoring lead as he now paces the Indians in four major categories.

Johnson, averaging 13 points per game, also leads the squad in rebounding (8.1), field-goal percentage (.613) and blocked shots (34). He leads the OVC in field-goal percentage, is second in blocked shots and third in rebounding.

Senior forward Mike Branson, the Indians' second-leading scorer at 12.8 points per game, is fourth in the OVC in 3-point field-goal percentage (.416).

Junior point guard Michael Stokes, Southeast's other double-figure scorer at 12.3 points per game, is eighth in the OVC in assists (4.2).

Senior center Brian Bunche is seventh in the OVC in rebounding (6.5) and sixth in blocked shots (23).

Junior guard Amory Sanders would rank fourth in OVC free-throw percentage (.885), but he does not have enough attempts to qualify.

As a team, the Indians continue to lead the conference in scoring defense (61.7), field-goal percentage defense (.376), 3-point field-goal percentage defense (.293) and blocked shots (school-record 128).