Indians jump from one big OVC test to another at AP

It was great to get an Ohio Valley Conference win over Murray State at the Show Me Center on Saturday night, and our enthusiastic crowd certainly played a key role in the victory.

We played only eight players against Murray, and each player had a good game. The enthusiastic crowd energized the players and wouldn't let them get tired down the stretch. Thanks to all of you who were in attendance.

Cole Grapperhaus played just three minutes but scored five key first-half points when he was in the game. He was 2-of-2 from the field and 1-of-1 from the free-throw line.

Brett Hale did a great job defensively against Cuthbert Victor and made several clutch free throws near the end of the game to keep us on top.

Damarcus Hence and Tim Scheer both shot the ball well, and Brandon Griffin had another double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds.

Derek Winans played within himself and hit big shots late in the game, and Adam Crader played great post defense when he was in the game.

If I had to pick a game MVP, though, it would have been point guard Kevin Roberts. He had a career-high 11 assists and six steals. Kevin is really playing well. He had 11 assists again in the Western Illinois game and has 22 assists and only one turnover in the last two games. That's really an amazing statistic. He leads the OVC in assist/turnover ratio at 3.07 with no other player in the league really close to him. He is just two assists behind OVC assist leader Marquis Sykes of Morehead State, and Sykes has played a lot more minutes than Kevin.

Roberts sees the floor well and has natural basketball instincts. He takes pride in getting the ball to the open man and the open hot man all within the context of the offense.

All in all it was great to get a win over Murray State, and it came because of a total team effort and great support and enthusiasm from our fans.

We had a chance to pick up a road win at Western Illinois on Tuesday night, but they had fantastic shooting stats in the second half and came from behind for the win. WIU shot 73 percent from the field in the second half and 83 percent from 3-point range. We have to give them credit but realize that we did not play good interior defense. That has been a real emphasis for us in practice this week.

Austin Peay presents a big challenge on Saturday in a 1 p.m. game at the Dunn Center in Clarksville, Tenn. The Governors are more athletic than we are, and they give us a real matchup problem with 6-foot-6 Adrian Henning. He is an inside player who can go outside and put the ball on the floor. We will need an outstanding defensive effort to contain him.

We need the same type of effort we had against Murray State, and we will have to shoot the ball well. Depending on league results this week, we could move to as high as second place if we can beat Austin Peay. Saturday's game will be televised by FOX Sports South, which goes into more than 9.2 million homes in the southern United States. The game will be on Channel 351 -- part of Charter Communications' digital package -- in Cape Girardeau.

Television games are a great promotional vehicle for our basketball program and our university. It is important that we play well because we are representing our university before a large audience. It's a big game for us.

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