TRIBE STILL SITS PRETTY IN OVC

Sure, it would have been great for Southeast Missouri State University's basketball Indians to sweep their road trip to Tennessee.

But even though the Indians barely missed out on upending Tennessee Tech Monday night, they came away with an all-important split that could wind up doing them plenty of good in the overall picture of the Ohio Valley Conference race.

The Indians got the road trip off on the right foot Saturday afternoon in Murfreesboro by beating Middle Tennessee State 78-76 on Richard Lyte's follow dunk in the final second.

Then Monday night in Cookeville, the Indians erased a 13-point second-half deficit and held a four-point lead with under four minutes left. But they couldn't hold on as Tennessee Tech claimed an 86-82 triumph.

While Southeast coach Ron Shumate said, "This is one that may come back to haunt us later because we had a chance to win the game but let it slip away," the Indians still returned home early Tuesday morning with a share of first place in the OVC.

Southeast, Middle Tennessee and Eastern Illinois are all 5-2 to top the league standings.

"We're still in first place, which is good," said Shumate, whose squad is 8-10 overall. "We went into the trip hoping realistically to get a split. Then when we got Middle, it's like getting a bowl of ice cream. You want a second bowl. It was a winnable game."

The Indians' next test will come Thursday night when they hit the road again to take on Murray State.

Then Saturday night, Eastern Illinois will come to the Show Me Center to start a four-game Southeast homestand.

"We've got 11 (OVC) games left. With the one at Murray and then four straight at home, that's almost 50 percent of our remaining schedule," Shumate said. "So this is such a critical stretch for us."

* The Indians' five OVC wins equals their conference victory total from all of last season, when Southeast went 5-11 to finish eighth in what was then a nine-team league.

This year, with the addition of Eastern Illinois making the OVC a 10-team league, every squad will play 18 conference games.

* Scrambled is certainly a good way to describe what the OVC standings look like less than halfway through the league season.

That's what most coaches predicted prior to the campaign and that's what most coaches believe the conference will continue to look like.

In addition to the three-way tie for first place between Southeast, Eastern Illinois and Middle Tennessee, Murray State, Tennessee Tech and Austin Peay are all just one game back at 4-3 while Morehead State has won three straight to improve to 3-4.

Tennessee-Martin (2-5), Eastern Kentucky (2-6) and Tennessee State (1-5) are the OVC teams lagging behind right now.

"I think that's one of the things that makes this league so good," said Randy Wiel, Middle Tennessee's first-year coach. "It's so balanced. Some leagues are really good at the top and not very good at the bottom. The OVC is not that way."

* Junior-college transfer Calvert White, who had a career-high 25 points Saturday against Middle Tennessee, was selected as the OVC Newcomer of the Week prior to the Tennessee Tech game.

A 6-foot-4 junior guard/forward, White averaged 20.5 points and six rebounds in two games while shooting 70 percent from the field and 100 percent from 3-point range.

White leads the team in steals with 33, is the second-leading scorer at 14.2 points per contest and has scored in double figures in 15 of 18 games.

* Free-throw shooting has been a problem for the Indians all season and that problem was magnified during the first half of Monday's game.

Southeast was a miserable six of 17 from the foul line in the opening 20 minutes in Cookeville. The Indians were fortunate to be down by only five points at the break.

For the season, the Indians are shooting 61 percent from the free-throw line.

* Although the Indians are in generally good shape health wise, a couple of players are banged up.

Guard Lakeo Keller continues to be hobbled by a foot injury that is likely to bother him the rest of the season. He appears to be in a lot of pain during games, but makes the best of it.

Guard Allen Hatchett has a sore tailbone area after taking a fall but he should be ready to go Thursday.

* The Indians arrived back in Cape Girardeau from Cookeville at about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday. They had the day off from practice, although school began Tuesday.

Southeast will resume practice today before heading over to Murray Thursday.

"It (Tuesday) is the first day off we've had since we got ready for the Puerto Rico trip (in December)," Shumate said. "I think the kids needed it, the coaches needed it, the managers needed it. We needed to get away for a day."