INDIANS IMPRESS GARNER WITH HIGH-OCTANE WORK ETHIC

Southeast Missouri State University men's basketball coach Gary Garner was pleased with the work habits of his first two Indian teams.

But Garner said those squads lag a little bit when it comes to outworking his third Southeast squad, now in its third week of practice as it continues to prepare for the 1999-2000 season."Every year since I've been here, I've said something to the effect that I really like our work ethic," said Garner. "But this team is definitely working harder than the other two, and those teams worked hard. This is the best worth ethic we've had."I think that says something about the togetherness of our team. That's one of the first things you look for and I think this team has that."Garner figures the Indians, who are looking forward to their first exhibition game Saturday night, will need all that worth ethic and togetherness as they try to blend in basically eight new players with four returning scholarship players.

Not surprisingly, Garner has seen plenty of inconsistency in his team so far."We'll be ragged early, not nearly as consistent early as we were last year, when we had so many returning players," Garner said. "We're very inconsistent, but if we can continue to practice and work hard, we'll get there and have a good basketball team."

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Garner said the Indians have remained relatively healthy through the first two-plus weeks of practice.

The only injury of note is a broken foot suffered by walkon guard Ryan Thomas, who has been sidelined about two weeks and will likely miss another several weeks."We're pretty healthy for this time of the year," Garner said. "We've got some normal nicks, but really nothing major."

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Three players among Southeast's highly touted junior-college recruiting class have been ranked among the nation's top juco sophomores from last year.

Street & Smith's annual basketball publication features a section on top jucos moving on, listing the best 60 junior-college players from last season and their four-year schools. Guards Michael Stokes and Antonio Short, along with center Nyah Jones, were all included on that list.

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According to Garner, it might take a while before he is able to settle on a starting lineup for the opening game of the season, Nov. 19 against Western Carolina."We've got very good competition going and it's just way too early," he said. "When you don't have a lot of guys returning, you don't really know who's going to start for a while."

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Southeast's opponent for the first exhibition contest will be the Dreambuilders, a team of former collegiate players that competes in an 18-game schedule against college squads.

The Indians defeated the Dreambuilders 81-60 last season.

Saturday's tipoff at the Show Me Center is set for 7:30 p.m. Southeast's final exhibition contest will be Nov. 14 when SKA-Ural of Russia comes to town.