Starting its season with only one scheduled exhibition game and one scrimmage, Eastern women’s basketball is now done with games that don’t count.

The Panthers open their season officially Friday when they take on St. Francis (Joliet) at Lantz Arena. But for a first-year coach who is still learning his team, and a team that is adapting to his coaching style, the first few games of this season will be a wait-and-see situation.

“(The first few games) are huge, especially for me because I’m still trying to get to know these players,” Eastern coach Brady Sallee said. “I know them now as practice players primarily and I need to find out who the gamers are.”

Sallee is looking at the first stretch of Eastern’s schedule, which lasts until after Christmas break when the team begins its competition against teams in the Ohio Valley Conference.

Those games give the first-year coach the opportunity to learn who his starters are, who will give the team a boost off the bench and how many minutes he should give to those players.

“Over time I’ll get to know who will be a couple of go-to players, who can bring a spark from the bench and who will be better used as starters,” Sallee said. “Right now it is a trial by fire situation until the players prove themselves.”

So far, in the lone exhibition game the Panthers have had, the team was up and down in the two halves they played. Besides that game against Missouri-St. Louis, Eastern also set up a scheduled scrimmage against Southern Illinois.

The purpose of the scrimmage was for Sallee to see his team against Division I competition. Also, the team was able to turn around some tendencies that Sallee wanted to see fixed after the first game.

“We scored 77 points against Southern and really had a good second half against Missouri-St. Louis, so we have had three good halves of basketball,” Sallee said. “But against Southern we were able to press more effectively, which we didn’t show previously, and pounded the ball inside.”

Sallee said that his squad went to the free throw line 29 times against the Salukis and noted that he was also happy with the up-tempo performance.

Looking beyond the past couple of exhibition performances, Sallee is keying on two things regarding his early schedule.

First, he is hoping to defend his home court against teams like St. Francis in the first game of the year and Illinois-Chicago later in the year. Secondly, Sallee and the team are looking forward to a road trip that includes games at Michigan State and Butler.

“It will be a situation where we need to prove ourselves,” Sallee said. “Michigan State is a team in the top 15, and they are loaded, so they give us an opportunity to play hard and see what happens.”