Wednesday, October 8, 2008 10:22 PM CDT
EIU women voted No. 1
By BRIAN NIELSEN, Sports Editor
bnielsen@jg-tc.com
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Pointing to a lack of a returning player among statistical leaders, Southeast Missouri women’s basketball coach John Ishee tried to hand the favorite’s torch to Eastern Illinois.
“You look at coach Ishee, I’m not sure he shouldn’t have been here (Tuesday) night with McCain and Obama with all the propaganda he put out,” Eastern Illinois coach Brady Sallee said.
The day after a presidential debate in Nashville, Tenn., basketball coaches were in the city giving their own pitches at Ohio Valley Conference basketball media Wednesday.
Enough coaches and sports information directors agreed to put Eastern Illinois atop the preseason poll to which the Panthers’ preseason all-conference selection Rachel Galligan gave both a political and probably accurate assessment.
“I smiled about it for about five seconds,” Galligan said, “and then it’s back to reality. It’s exciting to be where we hoped to be for our senior year but we haven’t done anything yet.”
Until December when some early OVC games are to be played, consider the Panther women with all five starters returning on top of the OVC, if you want to go by a 149-144 edge over Murray State in the total votes on a 9, 8, 7, etc., tabulation of picks by head coaches and sports information directors, who could not vote for their own teams.
On the other hand, Murray State, which defeated EIU for the conference tournament championship last March, received eight first-place votes in the poll to the Panthers’ six.
SEMO returning three starters from the team that won the regular season championship while beating EIU twice before losing to the Panthers in the postseason semifinals, is third with 129 points and Tennessee State, another team which did not lose a starter, is picked fourth a year after losing a first-round tourney game at Eastern.
The balance does not stop there.
“I think in our conference from worst to first is about a basket a night,” Ishee said.
Sallee probably would not debate that.
His Panthers won a double-overtime game, two others in overtime and six other OVC games by eight or fewer points on the way to fourth place in the league’s regular season.
That brings both confidence that his team can pull out close games and the realization that this conference has few or no automatics.
“It’s good that we have the experience of winning those games,” Sallee said. “You can’t simulate those in practice. At the same time we see that we are by no means a juggernaut as evidenced by UT Martin at our place.”
UT Martin, which finished last in the standings, won at Eastern last season at a time when the Panthers were atop the conference.
With all but one player back from last year’s tournament runner-up finalist, Eastern got the nod as the preseason favorite but still has the incentive to atone for last season’s loss to Murray State in the final after splitting with the Racers during the season.
For the second straight year, Murray State has a new head coach although Rob Cross is no newcomer after 13 seasons as an assistant under three different head coaches with the Racers.
“I voted Eastern Illinois No. 1,” Cross said. “I know from experience what his seniors went through losing that championship game because we were there two years ago sitting there and watching the other team celebrate and cut down the nets.”
Sallee said, “The way it ended last year left a terrible taste in our mouths.”
Now the Panthers have that hunger for an NCAA berth while carrying the burden of the favorite’s role.
“This is the ultimate challenge,” said Galligan, who was in Nashville representing Eastern on the OVC’s student-athlete advisory meetings and then attended the basketball media day as well. “It’s up for us to do what we need to do.”
Galligan was part of the recruiting class that came to Eastern after Sallee’s first season of rebuilding a program that had gone through a decade of losing records.
Eastern’s 19-13 record, overcoming an 0-7 start during a brutal preconference schedule, marked its most wins since going 22-8 in 1987-88.
“I’ll tell you, to be honest, four or five years ago when I stood up at a podium in front of you getting this job, this is what I envisioned,” Sallee said of the preseason favorite’s role. “I wasn’t as patient as I should have been.
“Barbara Burke (EIU’s new athletics director) probably put it best this morning when she said this is nice for our program but in terms of winning and games and losing games, it doesn’t mean a lot. We’re going to embrace the challenge. We’re not going hem and haw about it. We’re going to go after it.”
Contact Brian Nielsen at bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 238-6856.
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