Jackson boys basketball team awarded top seed in Southeast Missourian Christmas tournament

Editor's note: This story has been updated to include that Scott City received the seventh seed. The complete bracket can be viewed here.

Jackson boys basketball coach Darrin Scott presented the coaches assembled for the Southeast Missourian Christmas tournament seeding meeting on Sunday night at Isle Casino with his team's 0-1 record to start the season.

The Indians opened their campaign with a 70-64 loss to Carbondale (Illinois) on Saturday afternoon, and when asked about the contest, Scott replied: "You're not going to win many games when you go 12 for 29 from the free-throw line. We need the officials to not call fouls. We'll just play through it."

That response elicited laughs from the crowd of coaches before he continued to explain that while his team "freaked out" a little bit at the free-throw line, he was more optimistic after seeing his squad face outside competition for the first time.

His fellow coaches seemed to share in his outlook; Scott and the Indians were awarded the top seed in the tournament, which will be held Dec. 26, 28, 29 and 30 at the Show Me Center, for the third consecutive year.

Area high school basketball coaches listen to Southeast Missouri State coach Rick Ray speak at Isle Casino on Sunday. The coaches voted on the seeding for the 71st Annual Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament, which will be held Dec. 26 to 30 at the Show Me Center. (JOSH MLOT)

"I think it's nice for our program that we got the one seed, but it's like anything else ... a few more weeks and when you get closer, you'll know how people are playing," Scott said. "This early in the year it's always hard to tell. Good teams are going to keep getting a lot better, injuries can happen, a lot of things can happen."

Jackson has competed for the tournament title the past two years, winning it in 2013 and losing to Notre Dame 60-58 last year.

Saturday's contest was Scott's first chance to see how some of his players would respond to playing larger roles for the Indians, who have reached the Class 5 state quarterfinals the last three years.

"There's some things that I thought we wouldn't do well, some things that I feel a lot better about," Scott said. "I like our team. I like our talent level. *... Defensively we've got to get a lot better, and then just handling adversity in games when things don't go the way we want them to. How we play through those things is going to be our two key things. So that's probably going to determine how much better we can get, but I do think by the end of the year we're going to be a pretty good basketball team."

Cape Central was voted the second seed in the tournament. Coach Drew Church's squad is 1-2 after playing in the Lutheran South Tournament last week.

The Tigers, who took third in last year's Christmas tournament, have only had about six practices as a team since six of their top eight players were members of the Class 4 state semifinalist football team.

"To be honest, we're not very good right now," Church said. "We're out of shape. We're sloppy with the ball. We turn the ball over too much. We can't guard. I appreciate the seed, but in all honesty, we've got a long way to go and we really need to get in the gym and work on some of those things. Instead, we've got to play three or four games in 10 days, so we kind of get thrown into the fire, but that's part of it."

Church said he's seen his players make minor improvements each time they step out on the court. He's installed little on the offensive end to allow players to learn their roles.

"We've been talking a lot right now, 'Let's just make our effort perfect and our attitude perfect,' and if we can do that, we can move on and do some things," Church said.

Defending tournament champion Notre Dame was selected third for the second year in a row. Coach Paul Unterreiner's squad is 1-1 with a loss to Father Tolton and a 54-51 win against fellow tourney team Charleston on Friday.

The win vs. Charleston was key for the Bulldogs, according to Unterreiner. He felt his team might get seeded as low as seventh or eighth if it had started 0-2.

"I think everybody's expectations of us are pretty low," Unterreiner said. "Not our coaching staff, not our players' expectations, but I think the general public and the other coaches and teams around here."

Unterreiner led the Bulldogs to the Class 4 final four and a third-place finish in his first season at the helm last year. He told this year's team not to try to compare itself to last year's senior-laden squad.

"We're a completely different team than we were last year," Unterreiner said. "We will not look the same, we will not play the same, and it's just going to take us time to figure out what we need to do to win, and Friday night it was a scrap and it was ugly, but we won."

Charleston (1-3) was picked the fourth seed of the tournament. The Bluejays return several members of the squad that won the Class 3 District 2 title last year and took fifth in the Christmas tournament, but the key missing piece is DelFincko Bogan, who is in his freshman season at Jacksonville State.

"We return eight players with varsity experience from last year, but we lost a tremendous player that scored a lot for us, and right now we're struggling to score, but we're playing pretty good defense," Charleston coach Danny Farmer said. "We have a lot of room for improvement, but by the end of the year, we'll probably be there."

Advance, which is 3-0 after narrowly dethroning seven-time defending Oran Invitational Tournament champion Scott County Central on Friday, was voted the fifth seed and will face Bell City in the first round. The Braves were picked sixth and Scott City is the seventh seed.

Woodland received the eighth seed and will face No. 9 Oran on the opening day of the tournament.

Kelly was picked 10th, followed by No. 11 Meadow Heights, No. 12 Bell City, No. 13 Oak Ridge, No. 14 Chaffee, No. 15 Leopold and No. 16 Delta.

"It's going to be a tough road no matter where you go. We're going to have to compete and play our best game against some of those bigger schools," Advance assistant coach Chris Ausmus said. "But there's no slack there in Bell City, either, because they've got a good team and play hard; we saw that at the OIT."