In every session with his team, Eastern head coach Mike Miller wanted his players to get better every day – this was not the case Thursday night.

After a sluggish game filled with defensive breakdowns and missed opportunities, Eastern ended its exhibition season with a close 69-62 win.

“The most frustrating part was we couldn’t get five guys to play together,” Miller said. “We made it very difficult to play basketball tonight.”

The first four minutes of the game included the Panthers committing more turnovers (3) than made field goals (1) and Eastern trailing by as much as seven to NAIA Olivet Nazarene.

“I don’t think we took them for granted,” senior guard Josh Gomes said. “We just need to slow down and play with poise.”

Over the next eight minutes, Eastern managed to outscore the Tigers 15-4 led by consecutive field goals from senior guard Josh Gomes. The Panthers led 32-34 at half.

“Sometimes we were running around out there with our heads cut off,” Gomes said. “It was not a 40 minute effort, it felt like two or three minute spurts.”

Olivet Nazarene’s defensive pressure was the only reason the Tigers were able to stay in the game as ONU shot 25 percent in the first half and was out rebounded 25-15.

“They are an experienced, disciplined team that showed us a lot of different things,” Miller said. “So it’s good that were able to see how we reacted tonight.”

One frustrated Eastern guard was Bobby Catchings. The sophomore was benched after 4 minutes that consisted of a missed three-pointer, three fouls and being beat back door cuts.

“When you get into foul trouble like he did, you really never get into the flow of the game,” Miller said.

Gomes was able to break the game open after Olivet Nazarene cut the lead to three with nine minutes left. Gomes scored six of the next eight Panther points to push the lead back to 49-42. The Panthers leading returning scorer had 26 points on 9 of 20 from the field in 38 minutes of play.

“I tried to take the ball to basket more in the second half,” Gomes said. “I’m trying to get to the foul line more this season instead of settling for jump shots.”

Olivet Nazarene made a final run at stealing its first ever win against an Eastern by hitting three shots from beyond the arc in a two-minute period. Suddenly, Eastern looked up at the scoreboard to only see themselves up 62-57 with less than two minutes to go.

Coming out of a time out, ONU guard Micah Lavender was wide open for a three pointer that could’ve cut the Panthers margin to four, but the ball rattled out.

“I’m having trouble coming up with too many positive things we did tonight,” Miller said. “We had breakouts on both ends and should have played better. Period.”

Eastern will open its regular season at Xavier Nov. 19.