THE LATEST LINE: SMALL SCHOOLS SHINE BRIGHT AT U-HIGH

Before this season, the last time a Class 1A or 2A school had won the University High Christmas Tournament was in 1990, when 1A Scott County Central prevailed.

And the last time a U-High championship game had featured a small-school matchup was in 1986, when 2A Notre Dame beat Scott Central.

But all that changed Thursday night as 2A Scott City and 1A Advance staged a small-school final that had to make little communities all over Southeast Missouri proud.

With huge groups of fans from both towns making for a tremendous atmosphere at the Show Me Center, Scott City squeezed out a thrilling 48-45 victory for its first U-High championship since 1963 which is before Rams' coach Derek McCord was even born.

The title was a well-deserved one for McCord, who has transformed the Rams from one of the area's most mediocre basketball programs into one of the state's finest. His Scott City teams have knocked on the U-High championship door before finally breaking through this time.

Congratulations to all the Rams and also kudos for proving my pre-tournament prediction wrong. As you might recall, I had written last week that I would be very surprised if Charleston didn't win its third straight U-High title.

And congratulations also to Advance, which reached its first U-High final since 1960 and figures to win plenty of more games this season while keeping the community buzzing over its team. The Hornets pulled off one of the tournament's more memorable victories in recent years when they upended Charleston in the semifinals.

Overall, it was an excellent tournament, one that gained plenty of momentum after a slow start that featured almost nothing but blowouts in the first two rounds. But the semifinals were both thrillers and the title contest certainly was a treat.

Congrats also to Jreece Johnson, the Scott County Central scoring whiz who led all tournament scorers with 109 points and set a single-game record with 49 points during a first-round win over Kelly.

* Hopefully a large contingent of Southeast Missouri State University basketball fans will make the short trip to Carbondale today as the Indians and Salukis square off at the SIU Arena (3:05 p.m tipoff).

The Indians haven't beaten the Salukis since the 1982-83 season and a large, vocal group of red-clad SEMO fans just might help push the Tribe over the top.

Regardless of what happens today, the 8-1 Indians figure to have plenty of momentum when Ohio Valley Conference play resumes later this week, with home games against Tennessee State Thursday and Austin Peay Saturday.

* If had hadn't already, new SEMO football coach Tim Billings probably made quite an impression on Indian fans by the dominating performance his Marshall defense put on during Monday's Motor City Bowl win over BYU.

Billings will dive head-first into his new job this week, with recruiting one of his first and foremost priorities.

~Marty Mishow is a sports writer for the Southeast Missourian