INDIANS SCARE COWBOYS, FADE DOWN STRETCH

STILLWATER, Okla. -- Southeast Missouri State University basketball coach Gary Garner was more than anything looking for a spirited and hard-nosed effort from his team Wednesday night.

That's why Garner left storied Gallagher-Iba Arena with mostly good feelings even though the Indians suffered their third straight defeat.

The Indians, playing extremely hard from start to finish -- unlike during Monday's 21-point loss to Southern Illinois in St. Louis -- gave nationally-ranked Oklahoma State all kinds of trouble before the Cowboys squeezed out a 75-64 victory.

A capacity crowd of 6,381 saw the Cowboys improve to 8-3. OSU is ranked 21st in the USA Today/ESPN Poll and 25th by The Associated Press.

Southeast fell to 6-5 -- but the Indians certainly gave a very good account of themselves, as both Garner and OSU coach Eddie Sutton were quick to point out.

"I feel good about the way our team played. I thought we played with a lot of heart," said Garner. "We really competed and I didn't feel like we did against SIU.

"We played very aggressively. I have unbelievable respect for Eddie Sutton. He's as good a coach as there is. There's not a better coach than him, and for us to play as well as we did, I feel good about my team. It hurts to lose regardless of the situation, but we played well."

Sutton concurred, saying, "SEMO has a good basketball team. I don't know how SIU beat them as bad as they did. They remind me a lot of Creighton. We needed a game against a good team."

The 11-point margin of victory is somewhat misleading because the Indians led by two points at halftime and the game was tied with just under eight minutes left.

"It wound up being an 11-point game, but it really wasn't," said Garner. "Sometimes an 11-point game is closer than a three-point game. I think tonight it definitely was."

Cory Johnson led the Indians offensively with 18 points, 12 coming in the second half. Johnson hit five of nine 3-point attempts.

"I've been struggling a little bit of late and it felt good to get back into it," Johnson said. "We just came out and played hard and that was our main focus for this game.

"We knew we weren't a better team than they were but we knew we could play with them. We just wanted to come out and give it our best shot."

Mike Branson hit four of seven 3-pointers and finished with 16 points, 10 coming in the second half.

Bud Eley hit seven of 11 shots on his way to 14 points, although only two points came after halftime. Eley pulled down a game-high 12 rebounds, dished out five assists and blocked two shots.

OSU's Adrian Peterson hit four of five 3-pointers on his way to a game-high 20 points, 12 coming in the second half.

Desmond Mason added 15 points for the Cowboys while Joe Adkins and Brian Montonati contributed 13 each.

"I don't think anybody thought it would be as close a game as it was," said Peterson. "They hit some big shots."

Southeast scored the game's first basket before falling behind 5-2.

But, with Eley scoring 12 first-half points and Roderick Johnson getting nine, the Indians controlled much of the remaining opening 20 minutes.

OSU led 12-9 when Southeast scored 11 of the next 13 points to open up a 20-14 lead.

Brian Bunche hit two free throws with 8:41 left in the first half to break a 14-14 tie. C. Johnson then hit a pair of foul shots and R. Johnson drilled a 17-footer to make it 20-14.

Branson's 3-pointer with just under seven minutes left before the intermission gave the Indians a 26-17 lead.

When R. Johnson scored inside at the 5:22 mark, the Indians had their biggest lead of the night at 32-22 and the partisan OSU crowd sat in stunned silence.

Southeast was still ahead by nine points at 35-26 with a little more than four minutes before halftime. But OSU closed the half with an 11-4 run to pull within 39-37 at the break.

OSU quickly went ahead 43-39 early in the second half and later opened up a pair of eight-point leads at 53-45 and 56-48.

But, even with the crowd in a frenzy, the Indians refused to buckle. Branson and C. Johnson hit back-to-back 3-pointers to pull Southeast to within 56-54 at the midway mark of the second half.

When Eley scored his only basket of the second half at the 9:35 mark, the Indians had pulled into a 56-56 tie.

The Indians, although they could never regain the lead, forged two more ties at 58 and 59.

But Southeast scored just five points over the last eight minutes of the game. OSU used a 9-0 run to go ahead 68-59 and the Indians could get no closer than six points the rest of the way.

"I'm probably most proud of us coming back to tie the game in the second half," Garner said. "You can start off against a good team like Oklahoma State and play a decent first half and he half-satisfied.

"But when we got down by eight points and came back to tie it, it says something about our team."

Garner even went as far as to say that Wednesday's game was the Indians' best to date.

"I think it's our best game of the year, even in a loss," he said. "We've got a good defensive team and I thought we played hard the entire game."