HOOP SCOOP: THREE LOSSES PUT INDIANS AGAINST WALL

Three straight losses have put our backs against the wall, but with two straight home games coming up, hopefully we can get back in the race for one of the OVC tournament opening-round games at the Show Me Center.

The OVC race is a real scramble from top to bottom. We are currently in a tie for sixth place, but we are only two games out of first place. We have remaining games against three of the teams ahead of us, meaning we control our own destiny.

The crowd for the Murray State game last Thursday was outstanding. I would like to thank all of you who attended and particularly the students who used a record number of tickets. It's great to have that type of support.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to come up with a win against the Racers, who played an outstanding game. We simply couldn't control the three talented Racer guards who scored 65 of their 86 points.

I've always said that free throws don't win games, but they win all of the close games. Against Murray State we hit only 15 of 30 free throws while the Racers hit 25 of 33. You can see that was the difference in the nine-point loss.

Lakeo Keller, who continues to be hampered by his foot injury, had his best scoring night of the season against Murray State with 19 points.

Free throws were again a problem in our game at Morehead State Saturday night. We hit only 23 of 38 free throws while Morehead State hit 32 of 41 in our three-point loss.

We started slowly in the Morehead State game and fell behind 47-34 at the half. When Bud Eley fouled out with 15:34 remaining, it didn't look good, but our team battled back to get in the game.

Richard Lyte scored 12 of our final 14 points and we pulled within one point with just nine seconds remaining. Morehead made two free throws at that point but we still had a chance to send the game into overtime, but freshman Shaun Cole's 3-point shot at the buzzer was just off the mark.

We basically played the game without our two point guards, Keller and Allen Hatchett. Both were hurting but tried to play. Hatchett, who has tendinitis in his knees, played only one minute while Keller played just three minutes. Their absence is a real blow to our team. Without them in the lineup we have to move Calvert White to the point guard position and our depth is really depleted.

After the loss at Morehead State we moved on to Eastern Kentucky Monday night and again started the game very slowly. Eastern ate up our man-to-man defense and built a 45-31 halftime lead. We went to a 1-3-1 zone in the second half and our players seemed to play with a lot more intensity.

The result was another comeback that came up short. We cut the lead to only one point at 66-65 with 3:37 remaining but could never take the lead.

Our final two regular-season home games are critical for us and we can certainly use your help.

We hope you can come out for Tennessee Tech on Saturday night and Middle Tennessee on Monday night. Your support this season has been outstanding and we all appreciate it. Hopefully we can get you a couple of wins.

Ron Shumate is the head basketball coach at Southeast Missouri State University