HOT RAIDERS AWAIT INDIANS IN OVCE SEMIS; SOUTHEAST SEEKS ANOTHER 3-0 SWEEP OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- For the men's basketball teams at Southeast Missouri State University and Middle Tennessee State, tonight will be something like deja vu.

Last year, the Indians and Raiders met in the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament semifinals after Southeast had beaten MTSU twice during the regular season.

Tonight, at approximately 7 at the Gaylord Entertainment Center (formerly Nashville Arena), the second-seeded Indians and sixth-seeded Raiders will again square off in the league tourney semifinals after Southeast won both regular-season meetings with MTSU.

Southeast coach Gary Garner can only hope that things go as well tonight as they did on this night last season. A year ago, the Indians clipped the Raiders 82-74 in the semifinals to complete the season sweep of MTSU.

"That would be great," said Garner. "But we're expecting an extremely tough game because Middle Tennessee is without question the hottest team in the league. They're really playing well, probably better than anybody in the league right now."

MTSU is certainly on quite a roll as the Raiders have won 10 of their last 12 games. They're now 15-12 overall.

If the Raiders can make it 11 out of their last 13, they'll advance to their first OVC Tournament championship game since 1991.

"This is a new life and hopefully it will be a totally different ballgame (than the first two between the teams)," said MTSU coach Randy Wiel. "I think we've been playing well the last couple of weeks and we need it to continue."

Southeast will be trying to make the finals for the second straight season after never before qualifying for the four-team party in Nashville. The Indians sport a 22-6 record, their best-ever mark on the Division I level.

Awaiting either Southeast or MTSU is the winner of the other semifinal, between top-seeded Murray State (22-8) and fourth-seeded Eastern Illinois (17-11), which is scheduled for a 5 p.m. tipoff. The championship game is set for 1:30 p.m. Sunday.

"It's an exciting time, being one of four teams left still alive for a shot at the tournament championship," said Garner, whose squad lost to Murray State by a point in last year's OVC tourney finals. "The league was so much more balanced this year than last year, that's why I expect two very good semifinal games."

Garner knows the Raiders will put up much more of a challenge tonight than they did in the two regular-season meetings.

In both those games, the Indians had virtually total control as they rolled 61-48 in Murfreesboro and 76-56 in Cape Girardeau.

"We played well the first two games, but I really can't put a finger on why we beat them the way we did," Garner said.

Said Wiel of the first two games against Southeast, "We've played pretty good defense but we haven't played well on offense at all. In both games, we got down big early and had to play catchup. That's really hard to do against a team as good as SEMO."

Southeast has actually dominated MTSU for more than two years, winning the past six meetings between the squads. Garner can't quite figure that out either, because he believes the Indians really don't match up all that well with the Raiders, who feature the OVC's tallest team.

"We give up a lot of size to them at most positions. Their size really bothers us, so we don't really match up well with them," said Garner. "But there are some things that we try to take away from them, and if we do that, we're usually successful against them."

The Raiders' tallest player has also been perhaps the hottest player in the league. Lee Nosse, a 6-foot-11 junior center, has averaged nearly 25 points in MTSU's last four games and he poured in 32 points -- hitting 14 of 18 shots from the field -- during Tuesday's 87-70 first-round win at Tennessee Tech.

For the season, Nosse is averaging 10 points per game and he's third in the OVC in blocked shots with 37.

"Nosse has just been on fire," said Garner. "He wasn't playing real well the first two times we played them, but he's playing extremely well now."

Said Wiel, "Nosse has been playing really well and he has to continue that."

Another player who didn't perform particularly well against Southeast in the earlier meetings is Fernando Ortiz, a 6-5 junior guard who leads the Raiders in scoring at 15.4 points per game.

"Ortiz is another guy who has really been playing well lately," Garner said.

MTSU has two other double-figure scorers in explosive 6-6 senior forward Cedric Wallace (12.3 ppg) and powerful 6-8 sophomore forward Iiro Tenngren (11.1 ppg).

Jonathan Whitworth, a 6-foot junior point guard who has also struggled against Southeast this season, is the nation's top 3-point shooter at 51 percent.

"They really have all the ingredients of a very good basketball team," said Garner. "They've got really good outside shooting, a strong inside game and depth."

Southeast's defense continues to lead the way, although the Indians faltered some defensively during Tuesday's surprisingly close 76-74 first-round win over Tennessee-Martin.

The Indians lead the OVC in scoring defense (61.8 points per game), field-goal percentage defense (.384) and 3-point field-goal percentage (.298). Southeast ranks seventh nationally in field-goal percentage defense and 18th nationally in scoring defense.

"That might have been our poorest defensive performance of the season," said Garner of Tuesday's game. "But we've really played good defense most of the season and I look for us to get back to that."

Garner figures the Indians will need one of their strongest defensive efforts of the season to advance to Sunday's championship game because he knows you can throw out the first two meetings against MTSU.

"What we did against them (earlier) doesn't really matter, but it should give us some confidence," said Garner. "But the bottom line is, whoever plays the best (tonight) is going to move on. And they're really playing their best basketball of the season right now."