SE pursues 1st road win at Morehead

Southeast Missouri State University is winless on the road this season, which would not appear to bode well as the Indians prepare for two more games away from the Show Me Center this week.

But coach Gary Garner, whose Indians are in last place in the nine-team Ohio Valley Conference, is hoping past success against Morehead State and Eastern Kentucky will give Southeast a dose of confidence.

The Indians (3-18 overall, 1-9 OVC) face second-place Morehead State (12-8, 6-3) tonight and eighth-place Eastern Kentucky (6-15, 2-8) Saturday night.

Under Garner, Southeast has never lost at Morehead State and has lost just once at Eastern Kentucky, going a combined 7-1 at those two venues.

"We've had success at both places, and I think we can take confidence from that," said Garner, in his fifth season with the Indians. "I think these are both winnable games for us, but I've said that a lot. We need to start winning some games."

Since the last-place squad in the OVC is left out of the conference tournament, the Indians do have to start making some noise if they hope to qualify, although there are still six OVC games remaining.

Southeast is one game behind Eastern Kentucky in the battle for eighth place. The Indians' lone OVC victory came over the Colonels, 95-75 at the Show Me Center.

"That's a big game, because if we beat them and wind up tied, we'd have the tie-breaker by beating them twice," said Garner, whose squad is 0-10 on the road this season.

But before the Indians think about Eastern Kentucky, they'll set their sights on Morehead, which has won six of its last seven games to vault into second place in the OVC.

The Eagles have one of the OVC's top players in sophomore swingman Ricky Minard, who is the league's No. 3 scorer (22.4 ppg) and No. 4 rebounder (7.4 rpg).

In the earlier meeting at the Show Me Center, won by Morehead 59-53, the Eagles scored the game's final nine points and Minard's steal and dunk with under a minute left put them ahead for good.

"Minard is a very good player and they've been playing really well as a team," Garner said.