Redhawks will see different TSU team

~ The Tigers are without their leading scorer but now have a 6-foot-11 center and an edge in the standings on Southeast.

Quite a bit has changed about Tennessee State -- both positive and negative -- since the last time Southeast Missouri State met the Tigers.

When the Redhawks beat TSU 70-69 on Dec. 8 at the Show Me Center, the Tigers still had leading scorer Bruce Price, the junior guard now out for the season with a knee injury.

But since that game in Cape Girardeau, the Tigers have added 6-foot-11, 240-pound Oklahoma transfer Larry Turner, who became eligible in the second semester.

So Southeast (6-9, 3-6 Ohio Valley Conference) expects to see a different TSU (4-9, 3-4) team tonight when the squads square off at 7:30 p.m. in Nashville, Tenn.

"Without Price, and adding Turner, they are definitely a different team," Southeast coach Gary Garner said. "I'm sure losing Price has really hurt them, because he was a great player. And you hate to see that happen to anybody.

"But Turner has really added a lot to their team, and they're still very talented."

Price tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during a 74-65 loss at nationally ranked Ohio State on Dec. 23.

Price, a three-year starter who had gone over the 1,000-point mark for his career shortly before the injury, was leading the Tigers in scoring with 19.3 points per game and assists with 5.8 per game.

Price also led the Tigers in scoring last year with a 13.7 average.

"It was a devastating blow to lose Bruce," Tennessee State coach Cy Alexander said. "Everybody has got to do more because in essence we lost our best player."

Turner, a junior center, has helped. He has played in nine games, with seven starts. He is averaging 7.1 points and 5.8 rebounds, the latter figure ranking second on the squad.

"Larry Turner, we think, is potentially the best post player in the OVC," said Alexander, who noted that Turner still is trying to work off some of the rust resulting from his layoff.

Without Price, the Tigers have become much more of a balanced team, with four players averaging in double figures.

Clarence Matthews, a 6-7, 250-pound junior forward, and 6-6 senior forward Kareem Grant lead the way with identical 12.8 marks. Matthews is the OVC's third-leading rebounder with 7.5 per game, and he is shooting 53 percent from the field. Grant is shooting 50.7 percent.

Senior guard Wayne Arnold (12.4 ppg) is second in the OVC in 3-point field-goal percentage (47.3, on 35 of 74), while sophomore point guard Reiley Ervin (10.2 ppg) is second in the league in assists with five per game.

"They've got a lot of talented offensive players, even without Price," Garner said.

Southeast will be trying to bounce back from Saturday's 63-56 home loss to Austin Peay in which the Redhawks' offense, which had come on in the previous two outings, took a major step back.

The Redhawks shot 33.3 percent, their lowest figure in conference games this season and their second-lowest overall. Southeast, shooting 41.1 percent for the season -- 10th in the 11-team OVC -- had topped 50 percent in its previous two games.

"Our offense was real bad," said senior guard Roy Booker, the OVC's leading scorer with a 21.5 average who had a career-high 33 points against Austin Peay. "We never found any rhythm."

Southeast and TSU both are trying to snap two-game losing streaks tonight. The Tigers are coming off Saturday's 77-75 defeat at Jacksonville State in which the Gamecocks hit two free throws -- a foul was called in a nonshooting situation -- with 2.1 seconds left.

Tonight's contest marks the halfway point of Southeast's 20-game OVC schedule, meaning there will still be plenty of time for the Redhawks to make a move up the standings.

But Southeast is currently ninth, and only the top eight qualify for the conference tournament.

The Redhawks -- who close out a two-game road trip Saturday at first-place Tennessee Tech -- sure don't want to fall too far behind in the chase to make the league tourney, and with eighth-place Tennessee State just ahead of Southeast in the standings, the importance of tonight's contest cannot be diminished.

"It's a big game," Garner said, "but they're all big in conference play."