Looking at Southeast Missouri State’s roster might remind Eastern of better days from this past summer when they traveled to Australia for a series of exhibition games.

The Otahkians (17-10, 11-5 in the Ohio Valley Conference), who have three players (junior guard Sarah Costello, sophomore Miah Shelford and freshman forward Shannon Proffit) from Australia and New Zealand on their roster, have defeated Eastern in seven of their last eight meetings.

In the past two years, SEMO has outscored the Panthers (6-21, 5-7) by an average of 17.5 points per game.

This year, SEMO defeated Eastern by 15 to start the conference season in Cape Girardeau, and on Jan. 30, SEMO beat the Panthers by 18 in Lantz Arena.

In both games this season, four of SEMO’s starters have scored in double digits. In the first game, junior guard Kenja White scored 23 points to lead the Otahkians in scoring. In the second game, Preseason All-OVC First Team selection senior guard Lori Chase led SEMO with 20 points.

This season Chase has moved up from 10th on SEMO’s all-time leading scores list to fourth with 1,456 career points. Chase will move into third place on SEMO’s all-time scoring list with eight points Tuesday.

The Panthers might actually prefer playing at SEMO. The first time the two teams met, the Panthers held the lead for most of the first half before suffering a second half collapse, a problem plaguing the Panthers for the past two years.

When the two teams met in Lantz Arena at the end of January, the Panthers trailed the entire game except for junior guard Lauren Dailey scoring the first two points of the game. SEMO followed Dailey’s two points with nine unanswered points and coasted to a win while Eastern fumbled with the ball committing 27 turnovers (a season high at that point).

The winner of Tuesday’s game will face the winner of the No. 3 seed Eastern Kentucky vs. No. 6 seed Tennessee Tech Friday afternoon in Nashville, Tenn., at the Gaylord Entertainment Center.