SOUTHEAST ENTERS FINAL HOMESTAND ON POSITIVE NOTE

There's nothing like a victory to boost a struggling team's confidence.

So Southeast Missouri State University's basketball Indians, who broke their four-game losing streak by winning at Tennessee-Martin Saturday night, should now be able to take some momentum into their final four games of the regular season.

The Indians will finish up with four straight home contests, beginning Wednesday when Morris Brown visits the Show Me Center for a 7 p.m. non-conference matchup.

"There is nothing we can do about what has happened in the past, but we can do something about these last four games," said Southeast coach Gary Garner during his weekly media conference Monday. "The Tennessee-Martin game will hopefully give us confidence that we can use as a springboard into these last four games."

Southeast, 14-11 overall, has been a disappointment in Ohio Valley Conference play. After being picked to contend for a second straight OVC championship, the Indians have just a 5-8 conference record, which puts them in eighth place in the nine-team league.

A strong finish -- Southeast has three league games left, beginning Saturday against Eastern Illinois -- could very likely net the Indians a fifth-place OVC finish. But that would still be a far cry from what they had envisioned entering the season.

Still, Garner knows that ending the regular season on a roll would give the Indians a major boost heading into the OVC Tournament.

"We always talk about taking one game at a time, but it's really important for us to finish strong and take a lot of momentum into the first round of the conference tournament," Garner said. "We talked before the Tennessee-Martin game that, if we could just win that one, then we come home for our last four and we could really finish up strong."

The Indians are assured of being on the road for the opening round of the league tournament since the top four regular-season finishers earn first-round tourney home games.

• Southeast had one of its best offensive performances of the season during Saturday's 81-73 triumph at Tennessee-Martin.

The Indians shot nearly 60 percent from the field, due in large part to the fact they were able to consistently get the ball inside for relatively easy baskets. The five players who split time at the power forward and center positions combined to hit 12 of 15 shots and score 33 points, led by Drew DeMond with 12 and Daniel Weaver with 10.

"We've really emphasized in practice getting the ball inside more, because teams are pushing us out on the perimeter," said Garner. "We need to show patience to get the ball inside and we did that (Saturday). Hopefully we can continue to do that."

* Early in the season, the last thing Garner probably wanted was DeMond going to the free-throw line as he struggled and was shooting well under 50 percent for much of the campaign.

But right now, DeMond has to be one of the hottest free-throw shooters in the nation. The sophomore forward recently had a string of 24 consecutive made foul shots broken, but he's still hit 30 of his last 32 attempts from the charity stripe to boost his season free-throw percentage to an impressive 72.6.

* Redshirt freshman forward Damarcus Hence, after playing very little for most of the season, has been a solid offensive contributor off the bench in the past several games.

"When he comes into the game, he scores," Garner said. "He can really shoot, and he can get his own shot."