GOVES RULE START TO FINISH OVER INDIANS; AUSTIN PEAY ROLLS TO 84-71 VICTORY

In this basketball season of white-knuckle finishes in the Ohio Valley Conference, it's not often that a road team posts a wire-to-wire victory.

But that's exactly what Austin Peay did Saturday night at the Show Me Center. The Govs scored the game's first 11 points and were never really seriously challenged as they rolled past Southeast Missouri State University 84-71.

A crowd of 4,881 saw the Indians offer little early resistance. And that was basically the story as Southeast lost its third straight conference game. The Indians are now 8-14 overall and 5-7 in OVC play as they dipped to seventh place in the league.

Austin Peay improved to 11-9 overall and 5-5 in league play. The Govs are tied for fifth place in the OVC.

"It's hard to explain something like that," said Austin Peay coach Dave Loos of the fact his squad never trailed and had the game under control pretty much the entire way. "We just played well. We were very relaxed. And we played 94 feet offensively and defensively."

Despite falling behind 11-0 and 15-1, the Indians didn't simply roll over and submit. They did make several runs, but still could never get the deficit under six points.

"They came in and took it to us," said Southeast coach Ron Shumate. "We had to climb out of a hole all night long. I don't think I've ever had a team get off to such a poor beginning.

"I thought we played hard again, but I don't think we played very smart a lot of times."

As usual, the Govs were paced by the sensational Bubba Wells, a 6-foot-5 junior who is the OVC's leading scorer and also the nation's fourth-leading scorer at 26.3 points per game.

Wells, who makes playing well night in and night out look almost effortless, hit 12 of 23 shots and scored 28 points. He also grabbed nine rebounds, dished out four assists and blocked two shots as he played all 40 minutes.

"Bubba played a complete game," Loos said. "He made some great passes when he was covered."

Jermaine Savage also played the full 40 minutes and scored 21 points. Joe Sibbitt hit four of eight 3-point shots on his way to a 14-point night while Reggie Crenshaw added 12 points.

"Sibbitt played well. He especially had a great first half," said Loos.

Southeast got 18 points from Jerome Days. Bud Eley scored 15 points and grabbed 12 rebounds while Chris Chambers and Devron Kirksey both had 10 points.

Travis Smith, continuing to see more minutes off the bench in recent games, added eight points, as did Allen Hatchett.

Austin Peay shot 52 percent from the field for the game, hitting 33 of 64 attempts. The Govs worked their offense well most of the night, as evidenced by their unusually high total of 24 assists.

Wells scored on a follow shot to start the game. He dunked a short time later -- one of several slams the high-flying Wells had in the contest -- and the Govs were off and running.

Sibbitt's 3-pointer made it 7-0 barely two minutes into the game and Shumate called a timeout.

But that did little to slow the Govs, who got a fast-break basket from Crenshaw and two free throws by Wells to go ahead 11-0 less than four minutes into the contest.

It was 15-1 and 17-4 before the Indians finally showed some signs of life.

Southeast got to within 26-20 with 7:11 left in the opening half on two free throws by Days.

But the Govs scored the next 12 points -- Sibbitt had two 3-pointers during the spurt -- to open up a 38-20 lead for their biggest advantage of the night.

Smith came off the bench and scored five points late in the half as the Indians closed to within 42-33 at the intermission.

The Indians got within six points several times in the second half but never could pull closer. Eley's basket with 3:32 left made it 77-71, but Wells answered with a fast-break dunk and Austin Peay scored the game's final seven points to win going away.

Southeast will return to action Monday night, hosting Middle Tennessee State at 8 o'clock.