Old rivalry resumes

Even though Wednesday's game didn't go well for Southeast Missouri State, it was great to see the men's basketball series with Southern Illinois-Carbondale finally resume.

SIU represents the longest-standing rival in Southeast men's basketball history, the teams having met 111 times before this year. But they had not stepped on the court together since the 2004-05 season.

Considering the universities are only about a 45-minute drive apart, not squaring off annually in just about every sport doesn't make sense.

The football series between the schools also resumed this year and basketball followed suit with Wednesday's matchup at the Show Me Center.

Not surprisingly, considering the state of the respective programs, SIU rolled to an 86-65 victory in a game that wasn't even that close as the Salukis led by 36 points with under eight minutes remaining.

SIU is a legitimate mid-major powerhouse, making seven straight postseason appearances before dipping a bit last year.

Southeast is rebuilding after a 3-27 record in 2008-09, and it's going to take first-year coach Dickey Nutt some time to get the Redhawks' talent level even approaching what SIU can assemble annually.

SIU leads the series 68-44, having won five straight and 12 of the last 13.

Still, it was a nice event and fun atmosphere as a season-high crowd of more than 3,500 turned out. Hopefully for Southeast fans, in the future the game won't end up so lopsided.

Southeast returns the contest to Carbondale next season as the current two-year contract ends, but Nutt said every attempt will be made to ensure SIU being an annual staple on the Redhawks' schedule.

Sounds good to me.

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Southeast bounced back from the lopsided loss to SIU by notching its first home win of the season, Saturday's 116-60 destruction of NAIA Williams Baptist.

While expected, the victory was significant because it allowed the 4-7 Redhawks to already surpass last year's win total. That's not bad, considering it took Southeast only 11 games to accomplish the feat.

The Redhawks now have some time off from competition before resuming their nonconference schedule Dec. 22 at Memphis.

After that it pretty much will be Ohio Valley Conference play the rest of the way, starting with two contests at the Show Me Center, Jan. 2 against Tennessee Tech and Jan. 4 against Jacksonville State.

Southeast is 1-1 in the OVC after playing its first two league games on the road.

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A young Southeast women's basketball team has been up and down, as expected. That trend likely will continue throughout the season.

Southeast fell to 3-6 with Saturday's 66-54 home loss to Texas-Arlington, making it six defeats in seven games following a 2-0 start.

Like Southeast's men, the women (0-2 OVC) have battled a tough nonconference schedule that will feature three straight road games -- beginning Saturday at Central Arkansas -- before league play resumes early next month.

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As usual, I had a blast covering Friday's latest Southeast Athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Show Me Center.

It always is a treat for me to be able to mingle with some of the university's all-time great athletes, some of whom I had the honor of covering and some of whom I had never met.

Friday's individual inductees were basketball's Bud Eley (1995 to 1999), basketball's Rich Eichhorst (1952 to 1956), volleyball's Tuba Meto (1994 to 1997), track's Andrew Presberry (1979 to 1982) and softball's Linda Wells (1968 to 1972).

All but Eley, currently playing professionally in Iran, attended.

Also inducted was the 1988-1989 men's basketball team that finished second in the Division II national tournament and was coached by Ron Shumate. Six of the 12 squad members attended and Shumate was also in the house.

Although two of Shumate's teams are now in the Hall of Fame, I think it's a travesty he has not yet been inducted as an individual. Hopefully that will happen sooner rather than later.

By the way, my story in Sunday's paper about the 1988-89 squad stated that Shumate came in for the induction ceremony from his summer home in Fort Myers, Fla. I obviously meant winter home.

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Former Southeast athletic director Marvin Rosengarten, a member of the school's first Hall of Fame class in 2002, usually attends the induction ceremony but was not on hand Friday.

Rosengarten had a good reason to miss the event because he was in Glendale, Ariz., for a ceremony honoring the 1959 Yuma High School football team that he coached to an Arizona state title.

Rosengarten, a former athlete at Southeast, was a successful Arizona high school coach before returning to his alma mater as track coach -- leading the squad to numerous championships -- and football assistant, then taking over as athletic director.

Marty Mishow is a sports writer for the Southeast Missourian.