MARTIN LEAVES INDIANS SMART'N' 92-62

MARTIN, Tenn. -- The University of Tennessee- Martin is not eligible for the OVC conference tournament -- but the Skyhawks certainly looked like the hungrier basketball team Thursday night.

The Skyhawks got in Southeast Missouri's face all game long and the Indians did not respond as the they suffered a 92-62 loss in front of 4,028 fans in Sky Hawk Arena.

UTM, by winning its fourth straight game, improved to 11-15 overall and 8-9 in OVC play.

Southeast, eligible for the OVC tournament for the first time this season, fell to 12-16 overall and 9-8 in conference play. The Indians remained in fifth place in the 10-team league with one regular-season game remaining.

While the Indians have locked up a spot in the OVC tourney -- the top eight teams qualify -- they are desperately trying to finish in fourth place in order to earn a first-round OVC tournament game.

The Indians are still in the running for a first-round home tourney contest and they actually got some good news elsewhere around the league Thursday as Austin Peay beat Tennessee Tech.

Tennessee Tech thus finished OVC play at 10-8. The Eagles are in fourth place, just one-half game ahead of Southeast. If the Indians win Saturday's finale at Eastern Illinois, then Southeast and Tech would tie for fourth. The teams split their two games during the season, so that tie-breaker is thrown out the window.

The next tie-breaker is how the two teams did against the first-place finisher, which figures to be Austin Peay, as long as the Govs beat Morehead State on Saturday. Since Southeast split with Austin Peay, and Tech lost twice to The Govs, the Indians would win the tie-breaker and host a tournament game on Tuesday night.

Of course, all that mattered little to Southeast coach Ron Shumate after he had to endure watching his team suffer a total wipeout at the hands of the Skyhawks.

"First of all let me congratulate Tennessee-Martin," said Shumate. "I thought they were really ready to play. It was Senior Night and they were really motivated to play. They beat us in every area of the game.

"They got us out of our game-plan totally. The problem we had is we didn't attack offensively or defensively. They attacked us all night."

Southeast was never really in the game. The Indians fell behind 7-0 in the opening minutes of the game and tied the contest 7-7, but quickly fell behind by seven points again at 14-7.

The Indians, struggling against the Skyhawks' tenacious defense, could never get anything going offensively. They had just seven points in the first 10 minutes of play.

"They really guarded us," Shumate said. "They forced our offense way out."

UTM led 40-17 at halftime. Things got little better in the second half as the Skyhawks poured it on. They opened up a 30-point lead at 71-41 and that was also the final margin of victory.

DeMarco Wright scored 22 point to lead the Skyhawks. B.J. Nelson hit 15. Southeast got 12 points from Reggie Crisp, 11 from Allen Hatchett and 10 from Bud Eley.