SOUTHEAST'S MIAA STRETCH RUN BEGINS AT HOME TONIGHT

Editor's note : Southeast Missouri State continues its six-game home stand with a conference meeting against Missouri Southern tonight. Both teams are in the hunt for postseason playoff berths.

The month of February is upon us and it is time for the good basketball teams across the country to stand up and be counted.

It is hard to believe that only eight games remain on our regular season schedule.

Those eight are all conference games with three at home and our last five on the road.

It is important that we play our best basketball down the stretch. Some teams begin to fade this time of year, but we must work hard and begin to peak.

Southeast has always had a history of finishing strong. Hopefully this year will be no exception.

Our goal is to qualify for the national tournament. Each game is important if we are to get over 20 wins.

Our seniors, Mike Lewis, Danny Dohogne and Thomas Thames, are keys to obtaining this goal. Their play the remainder of the season is very critical.

The stretch run begins tonight as we host Missouri Southern. The Lions are still in the hunt for an MIAA postseason tournament bid and will come to Cape ready to play. They handled Missouri-Rolla this past week and are improving game after game.

Northeast Missouri is our opponent Saturday night at the Show Me Center. They are a very capable team with the league's best shooter in Steve Schieppe.

They have always played us tough and I am sure this game will be a challenge for our players.

There are two areas we have worked on this week to prepare for our games.

Our half-court defense has shown some positive signs but needs to improve.

We have also worked on our turnover ratio. This has really hurt us the past two games. Hopefully with improvement in these two areas we can continually improve as a team.

Let me encourage you to come out and support the Indians as we begin the stretch run.