Southeast tackles Tech for OVC semifinal shot

So much for momentum.

Southeast Missouri State University will find out tonight whether any effects linger from Saturday's 33-point loss at Austin Peay. The result will mean the difference between playing an Ohio Valley Conference semifinal game or ending the season.

"I felt really good before going to Austin Peay, but I didn't think anybody in the league could beat us by 33 points," Southeast coach Gary Garner said.

The Indians, 6-21 after Saturday's 80-47 defeat, play at regular-season champion Tennessee Tech (22-5). The tipoff in Cookeville, Tenn., will be at 7:30 p.m., with the winner moving on to Friday's semifinals in Louisville, Ky. Tech has won 26 games on its home court, the Eblen Center.

"It's not the way we wanted to go into the tournament," said Garner, whose squad won three of four games prior to Saturday's most lopsided loss of the season. "But our players still think they can win at Tennessee Tech."

Southeast is the No. 8 and last seed for the tournament after the Indians wound up in eighth place among the league's nine teams with a 4-12 record.

Top-seeded Tech went 15-1 in the conference to capture the championship by four games. The Eagles, who won two straight OVC regular-season titles, this year compiled the best conference record since Murray State went 15-1 in 1993-94.

But Tech coach Jeff Lebo knows what the Eagles did during the regular season will mean virtually nothing once tonight's contest begins.

"Just because we are at home, doesn't mean we are going to win," Lebo told the Cookeville Herald-Citizen. "Southeast Missouri may not have a great record, but we will have to execute and beat them."

Southeast and Tech had two competitive games during the regular season, even though the Eagles wound up winning both convincingly. They overcame a halftime deficit to prevail 75-62 on Jan. 24 in Cape Girardeau and blew things wide open over the final 10 minutes to roll 82-67 on Feb. 2 in Cookeville, Tenn.

Tech has the OVC's premier big man in South Carolina transfer Damien Kinloch, a 6-foot-8 junior forward who averages 16.8 points per game and is the conference's No. 2 rebounder with 8.4 a contest.

Kinloch ranks third in the league in field-goal shooting at 59 percent, which trails his teammate and OVC leader Greg Morgan, a fellow junior forward who comes off the bench to shoot 66.4 percent.

The Eagles have a solid corps of guards led by sophomore Cameron Crisp (11.4 ppg), junior Brent Jolly (10.6 ppg) and junior Leigh Gayden (7.3 ppg), who recently returned to action after it was feared he had been lost for the season with a wrist injury suffered before conference play started.

While the Indians are heavy underdogs tonight, Garner said he's convinced anything can happen in a tournament setting.

"This type of situation is what makes college basketball the greatest game in the world," he said. "We know how hard it's going to be and nobody in the world thinks we can do it. But you've always got a chance."

mmishow@semissourian.com

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