The Eastern women’s basketball team has not had much to be excited about this season as it has dropped its last nine games en route to a 1-12 overall record and an 0-3 Ohio Valley Conference record.

Attempting to fight through the injury of preseason All-OVC first-teamer Pam O’Connor and playing the majority of their games on the road has been the root of all of their problems.

If there was ever a time for the Panthers to turn around their season, it would be in Saturday’s game against Tennessee-Martin.

The Panthers have been playing some of their best basketball the past two games against tough OVC opponents (Eastern Kentucky and Morehead State), and they will have the home crowd behind them for only the fourth time this season.

The Skyhawks (5-9, 2-1) are coming off an 85-71 loss to Austin Peay where they shot the ball well, but were doomed by their 20 turnovers.

Turnovers will be the story of the game as Eastern has the worst turnover margin in the conference with a -5.23 average. Those mistakes have led the Panthers to the worst scoring offense in the conference with only 59.2 points per game.

If Eastern is going to have any chance of pulling off their first win in almost two months, they will need junior guard Lauren Dailey to continue having success on the offensive side of the ball.

Dailey is the only Panther who averages in double digits She is scoring 12.8 points per game and is coming off of a career-high 26-point night against Eastern Kentucky.

Eastern will also be banking on good performances from senior center Brooke Gossett and freshman guard Megan Sparks who follow Dailey with 9.8 and nine points per game respectively. Gossett leads the team in rebounding with 5.8 rebounds per game.

UTM is led by their only returning starter from last season forward Amy Watson. Watson leads the team in both scoring (14.8) and rebounds (5.0).

The game can be heard on WEIU-FM (88.9) with the tipoff set for 5:15 p.m.