Southeast Missouri State women's basketball coach Rekha Patterson has witnessed first hand the improvement of the Ohio Valley Conference, beginning with her team that was picked to finish last in the preseason poll surge to a 4-1 start in OVC play.

That's why she's not taking her team's next opponent, Tennessee Tech, which is 5-13 and 1-4 in the conference, lightly.

The Redhawks travel to face the Golden Eagles in Cookeville, Tennessee, at 5:30 p.m. Saturday.

"If you look at their start to conference, most people could end up that same way," Patterson said. "[Preseason favorite] SIU Edwardsville is obviously really good, and even though you get them at home, that's a good team, and then you go on the road for three games. And I don't care what people's record was last year -- everybody's better.

"They go on the road and they play Murray State close and then Austin Peay -- they've got a guard who is really, really hard to handle and a post player that is really, really hard to handle. Then we all know how good [defending champion] UT Martin is. So I don't think they're far away from where they should be. I just think they've had a tough go at it with the way the schedule was set up."

TTU, which along with Southeast finished 3-13 in the OVC last year, opened its conference slate with a seven-point victory over Eastern Illinois (1-15, 0-4 OVC) before losing its last four to SIUE (83-68), Murray State (56-50), Austin Peay (91-75) and UT Martin (67-53).

The Redhawks got back on the winning track with a 61-47 defeat of Jacksonville State on Wednesday night. They improved to 11-7 and 4-1 in conference to surpass their total and conference wins from a year ago.

Patterson said there is similarity in the guard play of the Gamecocks and the Golden Eagles, who are led by 5-foot-7 senior guard Samaria Howard.

Howard is third in the OVC in scoring, averaging 19.6 points per game, to go along with 5.5 rebounds. Through five conference games she's averaged 23 points. She scored 12 against the Redhawks last year. Southeast won that contest 68-66 in overtime.

"She takes a lot of their shots, and so we're going to have to make sure we defend as a team -- it's not just going to be one person with her," Patterson said. "And we're going to have to take care of the basketball, we're going to have to rebound strong, and again, when you go on the road you've got to think that we're down 15, so we've got to come out with that mindset, with great energy and effort because they're going to play hard."

Howard's shooting 39.5 percent on the season and 46.7 percent in conference. She's 9 of 33 from beyond the arc and made 98 (76 percent) free throws.

"She is an aggressive and attacking guard," Patterson said. "She really likes that mid-range, pull-up jumper, but then she can also get to the free-throw line. I mean, she's shot 129 free throws on the year -- that's a lot of free throws. She's always attacking. You've got ball screens, they'll push in transition and throw it ahead to her and if she has the ball in her hands, expect for her to attack."

Hannah Goolsby, a 5-9 junior guard, averages 9.6 points per game. She leads the team with 31 made 3s on 36 percent shooting from beyond the arc.

Five-foot-11 sophomore guard Yaktavia Hickson is averaging 7.2 points on the season and 10.8 in the conference.

"I think we're going to have to understand that we want her to take tough 2s and we don't ever want to put her in a situation where she's not guarded in transition," Patterson said of Howard. "But yeah, they do have other good players who can step up, so while our attention will be focused on Howard, we're going to have to make sure when she does take a shot -- because we're not going to keep her from shooting, we're not going to keep her from catching -- that we all put ourselves in a position to rebound. Sometimes if you take an extra person to help over on her that leaves you at a disadvantage rebounding-wise, which allows for those other players to get O-boards and get putbacks. She will be the focus of what we're doing, but we're going to have to play team defense."

The Redhawks continue to focus on cutting down on turnovers -- they're averaging 16.8 through five OVC games -- and getting to the free-throw line.

TTU is last in the conference in turnover margin. The Golden Eagles average 17.6 per game while forcing their opponents to turn it over an average of 13.2 times.

Southeast is shooting 68.8 percent from the charity stripe in conference action. The Redhawks only had 11 free-throw attempts, its second lowest of the season, against JSU and shot a season-low 36.4 percent from the foul line.

"I don't think we're going to see a whole lot of pressure, but I think we'll see active hands," Patterson said. "I think it'll be physical in the post because they are big and strong, and then their guards have some decent size on the perimeter. *... They're going to bump you off your cuts, so you've got to be tough enough to fight through that."