OVC clock may strike midnight on Indian hopes

Southeast Missouri State University will only have to worry about one of Morehead State's vaunted M&M boys when the Indians play their final home game tonight and try to keep alive their faint hopes of qualifying for the Ohio Valley Conference tournament.

Chez Marks, the Eagles' standout senior guard, saw his college career come to a close recently when he suffered a season-ending knee injury. Marks had been averaging 17 points per game to rank fourth in the OVC.

But the Indians will still have to contend with reigning OVC player of the year Ricky Minard, a silky-smooth 6-foot-4 senior swingman who leads the OVC in scoring (20.4 ppg) while ranking fifth in rebounding (7.3), fifth in assists (4.96) and second in steals (1.96).

"It was a big blow for them when they lost Marks, but Minard is a great player and they've still got a very good team," Southeast coach Gary Garner said.

While the Eagles (13-11, 8-5) are in third place in the OVC and battling for a top-four finish that secures a home game in the first round of the conference tournament, the Indians (10-14, 3-10) are tied for last place among 11 teams.

Southeast needs to win its final three games and receive plenty of help to have a chance at squeezing into the eight-team league tourney. Any loss the rest of the way eliminates the Indians.

"It's not looking good, but we just have to keep working hard and playing hard," junior guard Derek Winans said.

Winans on academic teamWinans, who has a perfect 4.0 cumulative grade point average in business management, has been named to the Academic All-District VII team, which makes him eligible for the Academic All-America squad.

Joining Winans on the All-District team are Brody Deren and Michael Lindeman of Creighton, Brett Starkey of Denver and Jake Sullivan of Iowa State.

Winans has started 81 straight games at Southeast and has 1,212 career points. He is the 18th player in Southeast history to score 1,000 points and has moved up to 10th on the school's all-time scoring list.