You could not ask for a better college basketball atmosphere than we had at the Show Me Center Saturday.

I salute our fans for turning out in record numbers and giving us the support you did. When we gave you something to cheer about, we had the great reaction from fans that makes college basketball such a great game.

You all did your part and I'm just very disappointed that we were not able to cap a great day with a victory.

Murray State played a great basketball game. Saturday, they were a top 20 team.

The Racers are a veteran team that has played in a lot of big games. Their top players have been in a lot of big games that have been nationally televised. They have been in the OVC finals that are nationally televised, they have played in the NCAA Tournament on national TV and earlier this year they played Detroit on national TV.

Murray State handled the pressure of the big crowd and national TV audience better than we did in part because they have been there before. We're just getting there.

After watching the game tape a number of times, I think it is evident that pressure of the game and everything around it got to our players. They were ready to play and played hard, but they may have tried to do too much. I didn't do as good a job as I could have to prepare them. We'll all do better in the future because of the experience.

We can really learn from this game and I feel confident our players will learn from the experience and finish the season strong. Our saying for the day when we resumed practice Tuesday was: "It's not what happens to you, it's how you react to it!"

We've just come off a stretch of playing five games in 10 days and we really need to get back to the practice floor and work on the things we do, not just prepare for another team. The fact we have only one game this week Saturday night at Eastern Illinois gives us that opportunity and we have to take full advantage of it.

Before we shift our focus to the next game, I would like to commend Roderick Johnson for a tremendous week of basketball.

In the three games last week, Roderick averaged 17 points, 8 rebounds and 3 blocked shots in addition to playing great defense. He has been our most consistent player all season and his effort and performance last week was outstanding.

I think we'll have a great effort and a good performance against Eastern Illinois, and the preparation has to start during practice this week.

We have to accept the fact that we are no longer in first place and go out and win our last three games and see what happens.

Murray State still has four games left and anything can happen. There are seven teams with a legitimate shot at hosting a first-round tournament game and we have to make sure we are one of those four teams.

The OVC Tournament is fast approaching and we should have added incentive because we still have a chance to win or share the regular-season title and we want to gain momentum going into the tournament.

Eastern Illinois isn't that far away and hopefully some of our fans will make the trip. The Panthers are 11-1 at home this season and we'll have our hands full, but we'll be ready for the challenge.

Gary Garner is the head men's basketball coach at Southeast Missouri State University