Indians need wins, not close losses

It wasn't the outcome that local fans wanted, but Southeast Missouri State University and Murray State put on quite a performance at the Show Me Center on Saturday afternoon.

Each team had just 10 turnovers and the Indians led most of the way before a late charge by the Racers resulted in an 80-74 victory for the Kentucky squad.

But despite playing well, the Indians were in no position to accept any kind of a consolation prize. The stark reality is that they needed to win the game desperately in order to keep alive any realistic hopes of finishing among the Ohio Valley Conference's top four and landing a first-round home game for the OVC tournament.

Now, after falling to 10-11 overall and 3-7 in the conference, it looks like the Indians might have to scratch and claw just to qualify for the eight-team league tourney. With six games left in the regular season, they definitely need to string some victories together in a hurry.

While Southeast's men are mired toward the bottom of the OVC standings, the women are steadily climbing up the ladder.

Saturday's 74-60 win over Murray State -- their third consecutive victory -- kept the Otahkians in a fourth-place tie and moved them within a game of second place. They improved to 11-10 overall and 6-4 in league play.

Southern Illinois' magical season continued Saturday as the Salukis won at Creighton to all but wrap up the regular-season Missouri Valley Conference title.

After losing their top two players from last year, most people thought the Salukis would have to perform particularly well just to reach the MVC's upper division. Instead, at 18-2 overall and 12-0 in league play, they've been arguably one of the nation's most surprising squads.

SIU leads second-place Creighton by three games with six games left.

Here's a bit more of an explanation, mainly for the FanSpeak people who are on my case, regarding my thoughts on Central senior Mitch Craft, who was among three players suspended from the Tigers basketball team for violating the school's citizenship code.

In no way am I trying to say that Craft should not have been suspended and what he did was not wrong. I have no problem with schools having these kinds of policies in place.

But having a couple of beers in high school is not the crime of the century and does not in itself make Craft a bad kid. I'm not trying to make light of underage drinking, but I'd be willing to bet that the percentage of high school students who have not had a few beers -- if not a lot more than that -- is very small.

Craft just happened to get caught and he deserves punishment. That's the way the system does -- and should -- work.

It might not have been the kind of game most people expected -- very low scoring was the popular theory -- but last Sunday's Super Bowl turned out to be one of the most exciting ever as New England squeezed out a 32-29 victory.

And as for my prediction of 17-14 Patriots, that score might have been way off, but the point spread was right on. After all the horrendous prognosticating I've done over the years, forgive me if I gloat just a bit

Marty Mishow is a sports writer for the Southeast Missourian.