INDIANS HOPE TO BUILD ON BIG WIN

RICHMOND, Ky. -- As exhilarating as Saturday night's 74-71 overtime victory over Morehead State was, Southeast Missouri State University men's basketball coach Gary Garner knows that huge comeback triumph will all but be negated if the Indians don't keep Eastern Kentucky winless in Ohio Valley Conference play tonight.

The Indians (12-7 overall, 3-4 OVC) and Colonels (6-11, 0-7) will square off in a 6:30 p.m. tipoff at McBrayer Arena as Southeast wraps up its two-game road trip.

"It was a great win for us. Any time you're down 17 on the road in a conference game, I don't care who you're playing, to come back, it's a tremendous victory," said Garner about Saturday's contest, which saw the Indians rally from a 50-33 second-half deficit.

"But we have to put that one behind us. If we don't beat Eastern Kentucky, then what we did at Morehead won't mean nearly as much as it could."

If, however, the Indians do defeat the Colonels, then they will have evened their OVC record and been given a major shot in the arm heading into Thursday night's key conference game against Austin Peay at the Show Me Center.

"A sweep on this trip would really be big for us," Garner said. "At 4-4, I don't know if we're back in it. But I do think the winner of the league will have at least four losses.

"At 4-4, we're definitely right in the running for a high finish. And then we can at least keep taking it one game at a time instead of feeling like we really don't have anything left to play for and looking ahead to the conference tournament. That's what you worry about the players doing if you fall too far behind."

The Indians left Cape Girardeau Friday afternoon in seventh place in the nine-team OVC. The win over Morehead State moved them up to a fifth-place tie. And if the Indians win tonight, then a victory over Austin Peay Thursday would put them in no worse than a tie for fourth place.

"We just want to take it one game at a time and keep moving up in the standings," said Garner. "We dug ourselves a hole and we can't do anything about that. But there is still more than half of the conference season left so a lot of things can still happen."

EKU, in its first season under coach Travis Ford, the former University of Missouri and Kentucky star guard, frightens Garner for a couple of reasons.

First, Garner is fairly certain the Colonels won't go through OVC play without a victory. He knows they could break through at any time and he's just hoping that time isn't tonight.

"You know they're going to beat somebody," Garner said. "Playing a team that's winless in the conference always scares you."

Second, Garner believes the Colonels have some pretty decent talent despite being in last place in the OVC. Southeast assistant coach Tom Schuberth even went as far as to say that he thinks EKU is a better team than Morehead State.

"They're athletic and they like to press," said Garner. "They're definitely not the kind of team we can take lightly, but in the position we're in, we can't afford to take any team lightly."

The Colonels' top player is Lavoris Jerry, an explosive 6-foot-3 senior who is one of the OVC's top scorers at 18 points per game.

"Jerry is really a good athlete," said Garner. "He likes to get to the basket."

Three other Colonels average in double figures.

Jerry White is EKU's most dangerous 3-point threat as he shoots nearly 40 percent from beyond the arc. Jerry is hitting 35 percent of his 3-point attempts.

Southeast will counter with what Garner hopes is a much better early performance than the one the Indians had against Morehead State.

The Indians were extremely sluggish in the first half Saturday, trailing 30-14 before pulling to within 32-22 by halftime. But Southeast fell behind 50-33 with just under 13 minutes left in the second half before starting the huge comeback.

"Looking at the tape, the first half was about as ugly as it can get," said Garner. "In the second half, we played hard. The effort got us back in it."

But Garner knows that no team can make a living falling behind by such a big margin on the road.

"You won't win many games like that," he said. "We were fortunate to pull that one out, but we definitely need to start a lot better (tonight)."