INDIANS SHOOT FOR OVC TOURNAMENT HOME GAME

After a grueling week that featured three road games -- and two losses -- Southeast Missouri State University's basketball Indians now have a little time to regroup before heading into the second half of the Ohio Valley Conference season.

The Indians (8-9 overall, 4-5 OVC) are coming off a 101-66 destruction at the hands of OVC favorite Murray State Saturday afternoon.

That loss came on the heels of Thursday night's tough 91-82 double-overtime setback at Tennessee-Martin.

Southeast won't play again until Saturday, when Eastern Illinois comes to the Show Me Center for the first of three straight home games for the Indians.

"Last week was a long week for us," said Southeast coach Gary Garner during Monday's weekly media conference. "Not playing all this week, and being able to practice, is really what we need right now. We need to practice."

Despite losing their last two games and dipping below .500 in OVC play, the Indians are20actually in pretty decent shape entering the final half of league play.

The Indians stand in fifth place in the 10-team league and, if the season ended today, Southeast would have a first-round OVC Tournament home game, which goes to the top four teams in the final league standings.

The Indians do trail fourth-place Tennessee-Martin (5-3), but the Skyhawks are in their final season of being ineligible to participate in the OVC Tournament.

Murray State and Middle Tennessee are tied for first place at 7-1, with Eastern Illinois a solid third at 6-2.

Right behind the Indians is 3-4 Austin Peay, with Tennessee State and Eastern Kentucky both 3-5, Morehead State 2-6 and Tennessee Tech 0-8.

"From day one, we've talked about getting in the top four and hosting a (first-round tournament) game," said Garner. "If you host that first game, then you have a better chance of going to Nashville (for the tournament semifinals). And once you're in Nashville, on a neutral floor, anything can happen.

"Right now we're basically out of the race for the (OVC) championship. We've got five losses and I don't see any way Murray is going to lose five games. But we're in decent shape for getting in the top four. We're not in great shape, but decent shape."

The key for the Indians the rest of the way, said Garner, will be to protect their home court. Southeast, 2-2 in OVC games at the Show Me Center, has five home contests remaining.

"We've got four really tough road games left, so it's really important we protect our home court," he said.

* Garner said he has been particularly impressed with the recent play of freshman guard Nathan Owen, a former all-stater at Cape Central High.

Owen has averaged 19.5 minutes of playing time the last two games and he scored 10 points off the bench against Murray State.

"Nathan is becoming less of a freshman," said Garner. "He's really coming on and his defense has been particularly good. We'd like to start playing Nathan more so we can rest Cory (Johnson) a little bit. We've just been playing Cory too many minutes."

* Johnson, the Indians' second-leading scorer at 13.8 points per game, leads the OVC in free-throw percentage at 87.5 and he also leads the league in 3-pointers per game with 3.47.

* Garner continues to laud the play of 6-4 junior forward Demetrius Watson, who the coach said has been Southeast's most consistent player.

Since moving into the starting lineup when Bud Eley went down with a foot injury, Watson has averaged 12 points and 6.7 rebounds per game while shooting 65 percent from the field.

"From start to finish, Demetrius has been our most consistent player," Garner said. "He's shot at least 50 percent from the field in every game but one. He rebounds, he runs the floor, he defends. He gets probably more out of his talent than anybody we've got."

* Rick Kaye, a 6-5 senior guard, is the top player for Eastern Illinois and also one of the OVC's best performers.

Kaye averages nearly 21 points per game.

"He can really play basketball," said Garner. "We're going to have to do something special to try and slow him down some."