The good news for the men’s basketball team is that they have been consistent in Lantz Arena. The bad news is that the Panthers have had only five home games.

Offense – B+

The offensive end has been the most consistent part of the Panthers game this season. Eastern is averaging nearly 75 points per game and has only been held under 70, three times all year.

Defense – C-

The team has had significant problems playing solid defense and has tried several different starting lineup to correct this. Teams have scored over 90 points in a game five times including four straight in November.

Coaching – C

Rick Samuels deserves some credit for the development of Jake Sinclair and has accepted blame for the inconsistency on the road.

Intangibles – B-

The men’s team is 2-8 on the road this season and Henry Domercant is the only Panther shooting over 70 percent from the charity stripe. However, the Panthers have shown that they are never out of a game and can come back from most deficits.

Strength of Schedule – A

It doesn’t get any rougher than at Florida, at Marquette, at Illinois and at Hawaii in a month. Eastern arguably played the toughest non-conference schedule of any mid-major in the country.

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Recently, the Eastern women’s basketball team has performed better but are still feeling the overall effects of a 1-12 start and a losing streak that lasted two months.

Offense – D

They are only averaging 59 points per game. The Panthers have been searching for an offensive potency to counteract the loss of junior center Pam O’Connor and their leading scorer, Lauren Dailey, is averaging fewer than 13 points a game.

Defense – B

Eastern is playing above average team defense except on the perimeter. The Panthers are the best in the OVC at field goal percentage defense but are the worst at defending the three.

Coaching – C

Linda Wunder has failed to win more than eight games in her first three seasons at Eastern and the last two were with Pam O’Connor, what did we really expect her to do without her? However, the progress of freshman Megan Sparks has been a bright spot this season.

Intangibles – D

The Panthers are yet to pick up a road win in nine tries and the team is averaging 20.7 turnovers a game.

Strength of Schedule – C-

The Panthers have beaten Navy (10-6) but have lost to lower ranked non conference foes like Sam Houston State, IUPUI and Chicago State. The two conference teams Eastern has beat (Tennessee-Martin and Murray State) have a combined record of 9-22, 2-7.