INDIANS FINALLY GOT OFFENSE GOING AT TENNESSEE-MARTIN

Our team played well in beating Tennessee-Martin on the road Saturday night to end a four-game losing streak.

I saw positive signs in our loss at Murray State Thursday night and hoped the positives would carry over to Saturday's game. At Skyhawk Arena, Tennessee-Martin had already beaten Austin Peay, Murray State and Eastern Illinois and so we knew we had our work cut out for us.

In the Murray State game we had good offensive execution, we just didn't make shots. We got the ball inside, but we missed a lot of easy shots. We shot only 34 percent from the field and made just one of 13 3-pointers, but we were still in the game.

At Tennessee-Martin, we continued the good offensive execution and we got our shots down. We shot 60 percent from the field, 64 percent from three and 86 percent from the line. Good shooting makes up for a lot of things, but we were getting good shots because we had good offensive execution.

We also had the Stokes factor. Michael Stokes' father and over 40 other family members and friends chartered a bus and made the long trip from Emporia, Va., to Martin, Tenn., for the game.

Michael's father called me several weeks ago and said they were planning the trip and wanted to surprise Michael, but he said that if I felt that would hurt Michael's game, they would tell him ahead of time. I said Michael was a veteran senior and if they wanted to surprise him, that was fine with me.

And so when they arrived at Skyhawk Arena, the Stokes family and friends were already in the stands to welcome Michael. What a tribute not only to an excellent player but a very fine young man. The group made the long trip that morning and left immediately after the game to return to Virginia.

Michael leads our team in six statistical categories and provides solid senior leadership in a quiet manner. He is a tremendous young man and is a credit to our basketball program and the university.

We close the season with four straight home games at the Show Me Center and hopefully we can gain momentum heading into the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament.

We begin the homestand with a non-league game against Morris Brown tonight and then face second-place Eastern Illinois Saturday night.

Morris Brown is a first-year Division I program out of Atlanta. We beat them handily in Atlanta earlier this season and, if we take care of business, we should be able to handle them tonight. If we look ahead and don't take care of business, anything can happen.

We played a very good Eastern Illinois team tough before losing by 12 on the road earlier this season and I expect a great game Saturday night.

We haven't had the type of success we wanted at the Show Me Center this season but we have had great support. The student support has been outstanding!

Hopefully we can build on our performance at Tennessee-Martin and close strong at the Show Me Center over the next two weeks. Once the conference tournament starts, anything can happen.

Thank you for your continued support of our basketball team. I'll see you at the Show Me Center.

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