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Sunday, November 22, 2009 10:38 PM CST
EIU men pull away from Eureka
BY BRIAN NIELSEN/Sports Editor
CHARLESTON – By the time James Holloway was dunking and hitting jumpers or when Jay Smith was putting on a shooting exhibition, you may have forgotten Eastern Illinois for 15 minutes was threatened by this NAIA visitor.
Tyler Laser still remembered the Panthers had a rather unhappy coach Mike Miller for a while Saturday night.
“He was frustrated,” the junior guard said. “It’s frustrating. You work every day in practice and then you come out and you don’t do it in a game.”
Frustrations had eased considerably by the time Laser with his 23 points on 10-for-13 shooting, five assists and no turnovers could sit and watch the last 10 minutes of the Panthers’ 93-64 romp over Eureka College at Lantz Arena.
On a night when most EIU students were gone on Thanksgiving break, no band was playing and with fans from Sullivan attending to watch Craig Black, fans from Lovington to see Dan Bolsen and fans from Chrisman for Jordan Kindred, Eureka had nearly as many backers as the host Panthers.
Those visiting fans among the announced 667 had plenty to cheer for a while and it was not all just the shortcomings of Eastern.
“Sometimes we have to do a better job guarding but they made some awfully good shots,” Miller said.
Take for instance that long shot Kameron Bell fired in with the 35-second shot clock about to elapse and a defender’s hand in his face.
That nothing-but-netter putting Eureka ahead 18-14 was one of seven 3-pointers out of the first 11 attempts for the Red Devils, who after Andy Leppard’s trey still had this upset in the making ahead 30-26 with 6:36 left in the first half.
After needing Jeremy Granger’s basket with 1.7 second remaining to beat another NAIA foe, Olivet Nazarene, 72-70 in an exhibition game 10 nights earlier, the Panthers did not cut things nearly so close this time.
Laser hit a 3-pointer and, after Leppard’s basket for Eureka, freshman Shaun Pratl scored the next five points starting a 14-0 Eastern surge.
That ended with Laser driving to the lane and passing to Curry McKinney whose baseline jumper ahead of the buzzer sent the Panthers to the locker room with a 45-32 lead and probably a much milder halftime discussion than if the break had come a few minutes earlier.
“We kind of started out sloppy trying to do too much off the dribble instead of letting things develop,” Laser said.
Laser had the best game so far for the Panthers, who are 2-1, but the preseason All-Ohio Valley Conference selection said he is not necessarily looking to pick up the scoring slack while another All-OVC senior Romain Martin is recovery from a knee injury.
“I don’t feel like that,” Laser said. “I know defenses are going to lock on me with Ro out. That’s fine. They can take me out. We still have four other guys.”
Those include Smith with 16 points and Pratl and McKinney with 10 each leading the Panthers to a 57-8 advantage in bench scoring.
Eureka, which opened its season beating Rockford 91-90 in its only previous game when Bell scored 44 points, this time got 22 points from Michael Zasada while Bell added 14 and Leppard 13.
Smith, who transferred to Eastern last year from Trinity Valley Community College, had his highest scoring game as a Panther hitting six of eight shots, including four of five 3-pointers, in 16 second-half minutes.
“Every day in practice I work on shooting,” the senior guard said. “I have to bring it out on the court on game night. I got in a rhythm and my teammates got me the ball.”
Miller said: “We wanted to give Jay some minutes and as it turned out we just gave him 16 straight minutes which might have been the best thing for him. It’s good for us to see some guys and what kind of games you can use them. We have enough depth that we can have some specialty guys who can be used in certain games and situations.”
The next game is 7 p.m. Tuesday at Chicago State before another home contest at 6 p.m. Saturday against Belmont.
Contact Brian Nielsen at bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 238-6856.
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