Nov. 25, 2003

Basketball Game Information

Double Tree Holiday Classic

Univ. of Montana, Missoula, Mont

Saturday, Nov. 29, 2003

UC Santa Barbara vs. St. Mary's, 6:30 p.m.

Southeast Missouri vs. Montana, 8:30 p.m.

Sunday, Nov. 30, 2003

Third Place Game, 6:30 p.m.

Championship, 8:30 p.m.

Probable Starters

Southeast Missouri State (2-0)

F 03 Brett Hale, 6-3, Jr.

F 01 Dainmon Gonner, 6-6, Jr

C 22 Brandon Griffin, 6-8, Sr.

G 33 Derek Winans, 6-3, Jr.

G 12 Terrick Willoughby, 6-4, Fr.

THE TEAMS: Southeast Missouri is 2-0 after a season opening 63-62 win over Wisconsin-Green Bay and an 83-51 win over Kentucky Christian.

Montana is 0-1 with a road loss at Wisconsin-Milwaukee prior to a game Wednesday night with Montana Tech.

UC Santa Barbara is 1-0 with a win over Hawaii and St. Mary's is 2-1 with wins over Binghamton and Alaska-Fairbanks and a loss to Rice.

THE COACHES: Gary Garner is 94-82 in his 7th season at Southeast and is 342-246 in his 21st year as a collegiate head coach.

Pat Kennedy is 13-18 in his second season at Montana and is 406-294 in his 24th year as a collegiate head coach.

Bob Williams is 81-67 in his sixth season at UC Santa Barbara and is 270-167 in his 16th year as a collegiate head coach.

Randy Bennett is 26-36 in his third season at St. Mary's of California.

THE SERIES: Montana leads the series 2-1. Southeast has never played California St. Mary's or UC Santa Barbara.

*** SOUTHEAST NOTES***

SECOND MONTANA TOURNAMENT: Southeast played in the Montana Tournament in 1999, losing to Montana 60-48 and winning over Robert Morris 55-44. Earlier that season Southeast beat Montana 66-58 at the Show Me Center.

Southeast went on to gain an NCAA tournament berth with a record of 24-7.

SOUTHEAST PICKED 4th IN OVC: The preseason poll of league coaches and sports information directors picked Southeast to finish fourth in the OVC behind Austin Peay, Morehead State and Murray State.

OVC STAT LEADERS RETURN: Junior guards Brett Hale and Kevin Roberts both led the OVC in statistical categories last season. Hale led the league in free throw percentage with 64-70 for .914.

Roberts led the league in assists with 179 and in assist/turnover ratio with 3.1. The 179 assists was the second highest single season market Southeast putting him just behind school record holder Dwayne Rutherford who had 200 assists during the 1998-99 season.

WINANS CLOSES ON MILESTONES: Junior guard Derek Winans has started 59 straight games at Southeast and has 877 career points. He needs just 123 points to become the 18th player in Southeast history to score 1,000 points.

COPI-RITE PLAYER OF THE GAME: Copi-Rite, Inc. of Cape Girardeau will sponsor a Player of the Game after each Southeast home game. The game-by-game winners follow.

11-21 - Dainmon Gonner

11-24 - Brett Hale

SECHREST LEAVES TEAM: Redshirt freshman Lance Sechrest has left the basketball team to concentrate on academics. He played seven-minutes in the Kentucky Christian game but did not score.

SID STREAK: Ron Hines, sports information director at Southeast Missouri State, has worked 666 consecutive basketball games. He has not missed a game since 1980. The streak is the longest in Division I basketball.

Gary Garner RADIO SHOW: The Gary Garner Radio Show will be heard each Wednesday from 6:00 until 7:00 p.m. live from Buffalo Wild Wings on 1220 AM. Erik Sean will host the show that will be shared with football coach Tim Billings this Wednesday.

Gary Garner TV SHOW: Southeast Missouri Basketball with Gary Garner will be seen each Thursday at 6:30 p.m. on UPN-The Beat beginning on Dec. 25. Steve Sotak will be host for the 30-minute show.

NEXT GAME: Following the Montana Tournament, the Indians have a Wednesday, Dec. 3 matchup at SIU-Carbondale before returning to the Show Me Center on Dec. 6 to take on UMKC.