SEMO wants to exhibit improvement in 2nd outing

Southeast Missouri State University men's basketball coach Gary Garner was pleased with his team's first exhibition game. Tonight, Garner will look for more improvement as the Indians close out their exhibition schedule.

The Dream Builders, a team based in Des Moines, Iowa, and made up of former college players, will provide the opposition in a 7:30 p.m. tipoff at the Show Me Center. Southeast's women will open the doubleheader with their exhibition finale, against Southern Illinois-Edwardsville at 5:30 p.m. There is no admission charge for either game.

Garner liked what he saw from the Indians last Saturday as they rolled past Division II Missouri-Rolla 77-53. But topping that performance tonight is the goal, even if it might not be reflected in the score because the Dream Builders figure to be much better than the Miners.

"This week is really important," Garner said. "I've told the players, getting to 80 percent of your potential is easy. Getting to that last 20 percent is hard."

The Dream Builders generally bring different players to their various exhibition games. When their better players participate, they can be formidable, as evidenced by a recent 99-91 win over Western Illinois -- a team that beat Southeast twice last year.

"You never know what kind of team they'll bring, but talent wise, they'll be a lot better than Rolla," Garner said. "They should be a really good test for us."

Just as he said prior to the Missouri-Rolla exhibition, Garner believes winning tonight is important as the Indians continue trying to shake off the effects of last season's 6-22 record.

"You always try to win no matter what you're playing, but it's more important this year to win the exhibition games than it was in the past," Garner said. "Arkansas State will be really tough and we need to go down there with a lot of confidence."

Arkansas State will be the Indians' first regular-season opponent when they open on the road Nov. 22.

Southeast has won four of its five previous exhibition games with the Dream Builders. The only loss came in 1999-2000, the season the Indians won the Ohio Valley Conference championship and advanced to the NCAA Division I Tournament for the first time.Noteworthy

Junior-college transfer Reggie Golson, a 6-foot-7 forward who has not yet practiced with the team after having arthroscopic knee surgery, continues to make steady progress with his rehabilitation but will not begin practicing for about another week.

Golson met with team physician Dr. William Thorpe Wednesday and Garner said the knee checked out fine but Golson needs to strengthen the leg some more before joining practice.Otahkians vs. SIU-E

Like Garner, Southeast women's coach B.J. Smith will also be looking for a victory and continued improvement as the Otahkians play the last of their two exhibition games.

Southeast beat St. Louis Goldstar 77-68 in its exhibition opener last Friday. Lori Chase and Kenja White led the way with 14 points each. Yashika Sidbury scored 13 points and Carina Souza added 10.

"We want to be further down the road than the last game," Smith said. "We kind of had everything scripted the last game, trying to look at a lot of things and not really concerned about winning or losing.

"For this one, we'll treat it more like a game with substitutions and everything. We want to go out and actually do something. We'll throw a lot more at them. We have to get ready to play a game (the season opener is Nov. 22 at home against Henderson State)."

Division II SIU-Edwardsville, which lost to Southeast in an exhibition game last year, is coming off a 14-13 season that featured a 12-8 mark in the Great Lakes Valley Conference.

The Cougars return 11 players from a year ago and expect to be significantly improved. They are led by forward Ruth Kipping, who averaged a team-high 18.7 points per game last season and led the GLVC in rebounding.