Southeast Missouri State women will host Governors tonight

~ Bad weather forced the game to be changed from morning to evening

The Austin Peay women's basketball team has improved its record greatly since losing to Southeast Missouri State on Jan. 4.

Since the Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team defeated Austin Peay 75-64 in Clarksville, Tenn., to give the Redhawks their first conference win, the Governors have won five of eight Ohio Valley Conference games.

The two OVC West Division teams meet again at 6:30 p.m. today at the Show Me Center for a game that will be important for the Redhawks chances of earning a spot in the OVC Tournament.

"I'm expecting their best because they're playing great right now. They're really confident," Margenthaler said. "They've got some really good wins on the road, so I'm expecting a very tough game. ... We hopefully can win it and put ourselves just a game out of .500 range and another conference win. No question every home game is very, very big."

Southeast is 7-14 overall and 3-5 in the OVC, which puts them in fourth in the West Division standings and 10th overall in the conference. APSU's overall record is only slightly better at 8-14, but the Governors sit in second place in the West Division and tied for fifth overall at 5-4.

The Redhawks victory over APSU nearly a month ago was part of a 10-game losing streak for the Governors. They won four straight after snapping the streak and have only lost once since.

Three players from each team scored in double-figures in the first matchup. Southeast guards Jordan Hunter, Olivia Hackmann and Allyson Bradshaw had 19, 13 and 11 points, respectively.

In the Redhawks' latest outing against Eastern Kentucky on Saturday -- a 75-56 loss -- Hunter had five points and Bradshaw had seven, while the Southeast post players were the only team members to score in double-figures.

"Our guards have got to make shots and just continue to take good shots," Margenthaler said. "If we do that, they're going to go in the hole."

"We need our top guards to play really well," Margenthaler said. "You've got to have those guys knock down shots, and when we do we look really good, and when they don't it's tough."

Austin Peay's Tiasha Gray had 16 points against Southeast while Beth Rates finished with 14 and Jennifer Nwokocha had 10.

Today's game originally was scheduled to be Southeast's second annual "Classroom on the Court" contest but Sunday's snow forced a change in plans. Many local schools that planned to attend the game were not having classes today.

students from local schools attend the game as a field trip. At last year's inaugural "Classroom on the Court" game there was an attendance of about 1,600. The average attendance for women's games at the Show Me Center this season is 466.

"Any athlete likes to play in front of a crowd, and we're going to have a good crowd of screaming young kids in the stands," Margenthaler said. "They're definitely going to be excited. It'll be a an early morning. It'll be tough to get adjusted to that -- we're not used to playing at 11 a.m., but I'm glad we're at home and I'm glad the community will come out and support this team."