With the most important game of the season tonight, the men’s basketball team is feeling confident in its chances to knock off rival Murray State and advance to the finals of the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament.

The two teams split the season series 1-1, with Eastern dominating the game on Jan. 13 in Lantz Gymnasium 79-63 and the Racers pulling away with a 92-77 victory at Murray on Feb. 8. So when the ball is tipped off at 8 p.m. in the Gaylord Entertainment Center in Nashville, there will not be many surprises as far as the coaches are concerned.

“There is an air of confidence coming from our older players,” Panther head coach Rick Samules said. “We had a lot of guys play (in Nashville) last year, so we feel comfortable.”

The Racers will look to First Team All-Conference pick Isaac Spencer and guard Justin Burdine for their offensive fire power. Spencer is coming off of a 42- point, 15-rebound game against Tennessee State University on Thursday night, while Burdine has continued to spark the Racers off the bench averaging 15.5 points per game.

When asked if he was concerned about the huge numbers Spencer put up, Samuels said, “Well, they have to worry about Kyle (Hill) scoring 40 and Henry (Domercant) scoring 22,” he said. “It does concern me a little, but we would rather have Ike (Issac Spencer) try to take over the game himself.

“If he tries that then we only have to worry about guarding one guy instead of the whole team,” Samuels said.

Burdine scored a career-high 27 points the last time these two teams met, and one can bet that coach Samuels will have his players give Burdine special attention on defense.

“We have to make sure we don’t give Burdine any open looks,” Samuels said. “We also need to keep their perimeter players like (Chris) Shumate and (Kevin) Paschel off of the boards.”

Even though Murray has won four of the last six tournament titles, Racers coach Tevester Anderson feels that Eastern has the advantage because of their experience.

“Eastern has more Nashville experience than this team does,” Anderson said. “We’re a very, very young team. We are one of the most inexperienced teams in the conference.

“Eastern has guys who have been there before and will be prepared mentally for it,” he said.

Samuels has a different outlook on the situation.

“Experience is only part of the game,” he said. “Even though we’re going to be in the white uniforms, they’ll be the home team as far as the crowd is concerned.

“They might be young, but as a program they have been here so many times that they are very dangerous.”