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Wednesday, July 30, 2008 11:11 PM CDT
EIU women's basketball schedule comes together
By JG/T-C Staff
sports@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON -- Fourteen regular-season home games, including non-conference dates with Miami of Ohio, Southern Methodist and Illinois-Chicago, highlight Eastern Illinois women’s basketball 2008-09 schedule, unveiled by head coach Brady Sallee.
The Ohio Valley Conference portion of the slate remains a double round-robin format, but with Samford departing the league, Sallee had some more room to maneuver with the non-conference schedule. The Panthers are to play a dozen non-conference regular-season games this season, up from nine last season.
Eastern opens its regular-season slate on Nov. 14 against Miami. SMU (Nov. 24), Southern Illinois-Edwardsville (Dec. 10) and Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne (Dec. 13) are also new additions to the home schedule from 2007-08.
The Panthers take a brief hiatus from OVC play Feb. 4 to host Illinois-Chicago at Lantz Arena. The last EIU-UIC meeting at Charleston went to overtime.
Season ticket information for both EIU basketball teams is to be released in mid-September.
The Panthers are set to return to the University of Cincinnati as well. Eastern plays three games in three days at the four-team tournament over Thanksgiving. Mississippi Valley State and Savannah State are also making the trip to the Queen City and are EIU’s first two opponents. The Panthers and Bearcats square off in the final game of the event, marking the first meeting between the two teams since December 2005.
In other non-conference road action, EIU visits four regional rivals: Illinois (Nov. 16), Bradley (Nov. 19), Indiana State (Dec. 19) and Illinois State (Dec. 29). Eastern last played the Fighting Illini in Champaign in December 2001.
“We have, again, put together a non-conference schedule that will be very tough, but at the same time beneficial,” Sallee said. “We wanted to challenge our veteran ballclub and be able to position ourselves for a great run in our league. I hope that our campus and community will be excited about our home slate. There will definitely be some exciting evenings in Lantz Arena. We can’t wait to get started.”
With all five starters and 11 total letter-winners returning from the 2008 team that finished tied for second and reached the OVC Tournament title game, the Panthers are projected to be one of the favorites for the upcoming season in the 10-team conference.
Due to a scheduling quirk, Eastern opens and closes its league schedule against Tennessee State and Austin Peay. The Panthers host the two foes the first weekend of December and make the Volunteer State swing to close the month of February. Meanwhile, EIU plays both Tennessee Tech and Jacksonville State twice in January.
The dates with fellow favorites Murray State (Jan. 22 in Murray, Feb. 21 in Charleston) and Southeast Missouri (Jan. 10 in Cape Girardeau, Feb. 7 in Charleston) loom as potentially the biggest games of the conference season.
The format for the OVC Tournament remains the same. The top eight teams qualify and the top four finishers play host to first-round games on March 3. The semifinals and championship game return to Sonnet Center (formerly the Gaylord Entertainment Center) in Nashville this spring. The ‘08 event was held at the Municipal Auditorium.
Game times for home dates are set for 3 p.m. on Saturdays and 5:30 p.m. on doubleheader Thursdays. The Miami, SIU-E and UIC games are slated for 7 p.m. tipoffs, while the SMU game is a noon matinee played on the Monday before Thanksgiving.
Eastern is to play host to Brescia College (Nov. 2) and St. Joseph’s College (Nov. 5) during the exhibition season.
The Panthers played a program-record 16 home games last season, posting an 11-5 mark at Lantz Arena.
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