SUCCESSFUL ROAD TRIP BUOYS INDIANS' OVC HOPES

It feels great to come home from an Ohio Valley Conference road trip with two victories. Our hard earned wins over Morehead State and Eastern Kentucky, along with our win last week at Morris Brown, give us a three-game win streak and some momentum going into two crucial home games at the Show Me Center this week.

I thought our team played well at Morehead where we won in overtime and at Eastern Kentucky where we won by six points. In both games, I thought we really executed well down the stretch and did the things we needed to do to get the wins. We got the ball to the right people in the key late game situations and we made our free throws.

Daniel Weaver really did a good job at the post position. He came off the bench at Morehead and gave us some solid play and he got a start at Eastern Kentucky and responded with 11 points and eight rebounds. With Daniel at the post we seem to do a better job of running our halfcourt offense. He is an excellent passer and gets the ball to the open man quickly. If he continues to rebound well, he will be a big asset for us as we go down the stretch in the OVC.

Tim Scheer is also continuing to play well off the bench and he is becoming more consistent. He had 11 points and nine rebounds against Eastern Kentucky. Joe Shelton had some quality minutes at Eastern Kentucky and hit a big 3-pointer at the first-half buzzer to put us up by seven points.

Emmanuel McCuthison and Antonio Short continue to make better use of the offense to get their shots. They both played really well down the stretch in the close road games.

Michael Stokes is our "Mr. Consistency". He just gets the job done night in and night out. He had 23 points in the second half of the Morehead State game and almost single-handedly brought us back from a 17-point, second-half deficit. He is making great decisions and is giving us great on-the-floor leadership.

We are now 4-4 and in fifth place in the OVC and we have to protect our home floor at the Show Me Center. Austin Peay will be in town Thursday night and the talented Governors are just ahead of us in the standings at 5-3. If we can beat them we will move into a tie for fourth.

The top four teams in the OVC get a first-round home game in the conference tournament, so every game is vital to get us into the top four and keep us there.

Austin Peay beat us by 28 points earlier this year and I know my guys are looking forward to having another shot at the Governors. They are the most talented team in the league and they have the top player in Trenton Hassell, who will be a first-round pick in the NBA Draft. Several NBA scouts will be at Thursday night's game.

In order to beat Peay, we will have to control the pace of the game. If we can get them to play at our pace, it should be a great basketball game. The game will be televised by Fox Sports Net South and will go into over 8 million homes in seven southern states. It will not be televised locally.

Saturday night, a much improved Tennessee State team will be at the Show Me Center. We beat Tennessee State by 31 points earlier this year and, just like we look forward to our rematch with Austin Peay, I'm sure Tennessee State is looking forward to going against us again. The Tigers are the only OVC team to beat Tennessee Tech this year, so on any given night they can beat anybody.

We have a three-game win streak and momentum as we face the two OVC contests at the Show Me Center. I hope you will be there because we're going to need all the help we can get to defend our home court and get back in the heat of the OVC race.

Gary Garner is the head basketball coach at Southeast Missouri State University.