EIU again saves best for Indians

We certainly bring out the best in the Eastern Illinois basketball team. According to their coaches, their best two games of the season have been against Southeast.

I felt we were really ready to play Tuesday night in Charleston, Ill., and we got off to a great start, but we couldn't slow down Henry Domercant and the rest of the EIU shooters and the Panthers came away with an 85-73 win.

I thought we played well enough offensively to win, but we could certainly have played better on the defensive end. We were also hurt by 18 turnovers, but EIU also had 18 turnovers.

Two players who have really been playing well for us had big games at EIU. Brandon Griffin had his ninth double-double of the season with 18 points and 13 rebounds and Brett Hale had a career high 29 points with 11-for-13 from the field, 4-for-5 from three and 3-for-3 from the line.

Brandon is just a relentless rebounder who goes after every rebound. He is currently ninth in the nation in rebounding with 10.7 boards per game and has to rank as one of the top rebounders ever at Southeast. He is like Dennis Rodman in the fact that he chases after every rebound regardless of where it goes.

We continue to work with Brandon on his post moves and he is getting better. At EIU he was 8-for-10 from the floor. He also had three assists and four steals.

Brett has really been shooting the ball well. Over the last three games he is averaging 22 points while shooting 69 percent from the field, 63 percent from three and 100 percent from the line. He is the top free throw shooter in the OVC with 47-for-50 for 94 percent and he has hit his last 19 free throws in a row.

Brett really understands our offensive system and how he needs to operate in our system. He continues to get better in every phase of his game because he works hard in practice to understand how he needs to operate within the system. He lets the game come to him.

Brett's confidence is very good because he is taking and making good shots and he has great technique on his jump shot and free throws.

We have two big games at the Show Me Center this week. Ohio Valley Conference leader Morehead State will be our opponent tonight at 7 p.m. and Eastern Kentucky will be the foe Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

Kyle Macy, the former Kentucky Wildcat star, has done a really good job with this year's Morehead team. They have very good team chemistry and they have good team balance with some very solid players and one great player in Ricky Minard. Morehead is an experienced junior/senior team that will be difficult to beat.

We need the same type of effort we had against Murray State and Tennessee Tech in order to play with Morehead and have a chance to win at the end of the game.

Saturday night we will be playing our fifth game in 10 days against a team that we beat on their home court earlier this year. And we will be coming off an emotional game against the league leader.

Our fans can play a key role in the two games this week. We need that home court advantage tonight that is created by a big and enthusiastic crowd. It will be Greek Night and we look forward to the great student enthusiasm and our biggest student crowd of the year.

Saturday night our team will be battling fatigue created by five games in 10 days and an enthusiastic crowd will motivate us to take care of business.

These are two very important games and I look forward to seeing you at the Show Me Center.

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