The Florida Gulf Coast Eagles will fly from their sun-soaked hometown of Fort Myers Fla., to ice-covered Charleston on Tuesday night to battle the Panthers men’s basketball team.

The Eagles are ranked 14th among Division II schools and are coming off a loss to Division I-A opponent Florida International.

Despite being a Division II school, Panther coach Rick Samuels thinks the Eagles are a quality opponent.

“They’re a great opponent,” Samuels said. “They have four Division I-A transfers playing for them.”

Three of those transfers: Leighton Bowie (College of Charleston), Bryan Crislip (Arkansas Little Rock) and Ryan Hopkins (Eastern Michigan University) average double-figures in points per game.

“They’re very athletic,” Samuels said. “They also have a couple of guys that shoot from very deep. There’s not a lot of consciousness in any circumstance.”

The Eagles have an advantage over the Panthers in assistant coach, Mark Polite, a former Eastern basketball player. Polite was a four-year letterman at Eastern and holds several school records including three-pointers made in a single game with 10 and three-pointers attempted in one game with 15.

After his playing days, Polite stayed at Eastern as an Administrative Assistant for two years while he completed his master’s degree in Athletic Administration. After completion of his studies Polite left Eastern to assist his high school coach at Danville High.

Samuels said he would have hired Polite but there wasn’t a vacant spot for him.

Samuels said Polite will know all the inbound plays and Eastern’s motion offense, but that just means the Panthers will have to be more careful in what they do.

“Their defense still has to read what we’re doing,” Samuels said.

The Eagles are 18-3 and haven’t lost a game at home, but are weaker away with a 5-3 road record.

When they come to Lantz for the teams’ first meeting, the Eagles will be running into a Panther team who has been playing better basketball as of late.

They have won two of their last three games and have senior Jesse Mackinson and sophomore Josh Gomes playing pretty good ball.

Mackinson and Gomes have each had career highs in points scored in one of the past three games. Gomes had 40 points in a home overtime win against Tennessee-Martin and Mackinson had a 29 points in the Panthers first road win at Southeast Missouri.

The Eagles have done just the opposite in their last three games, losing two of their last three. The Eagles’ last two losses came on the road and their last loss came at Division I-A Florida International. However, Bowie had a double double with 26 points and 13 rebounds.

In the Ohio Valley Conference standings, the Panthers are a half game behind Jacksonville State, who are hanging on to the eighth and last OVC tournament spot and a win by Eastern could get them headed in the right direction.