The Eastern Illinois women’s basketball team played two overtime games against Eastern Kentucky last season.

They won them both.

But none of that matters to Panthers’ head coach Brady Sallee as he prepares for today’s Ohio Valley Conference game against the Colonels at 5:30 p.m. in Lantz Arena.

“With them having a new coach and almost an entirely new roster, it’s hard to look at last year,” said Sallee, who has a 5-2 career record against Eastern Kentucky. “This is actually one of the only games where I have not gone back and watched last year’s films to remind myself of it. It’s that different.”

Last season, the Panthers won 91-86 in overtime in the team’s first meeting in Richmond, Ky.

The game was sent into overtime when then-junior Panthers guard Megan Edwards hit a 3-pointer at the end of regulation to send the game into overtime.

Likewise, the game in Charleston saw Eastern Kentucky’s since-graduated-guard Niki Avery sent the game into overtime with a 3-pointer at the end of regulation before the Panthers pulled out an 86-81 victory.

While the Panthers’ entire starting five is the same from a year ago, the same cannot be said about the Colonels.

Eastern Kentucky (6-7, 3-3 OVC) features new starters at all five positions, including their leading scorer entering Thursday’s contest, in freshman guard Kayla Drake.

The 5-foot-4 Drake is leading all freshmen in scoring in the OVC with 16.7 points per game.

Additionally, the team’s second leading scorer, junior forward Colette Cole, who is averaging 10.4 points per game, only played in 12 games a season ago and averaged 1.4 points per game.

However, while the players on the court are different for the Colonels, the most noticeable change is behind the bench as first-year coach Chrissy Roberts takes over for Larry Joe Inman, who retired as Eastern Kentucky’s coach after 20 years and 16 OVC Championships.

Although Roberts is a new coach, Sallee is quite familiar with her as the two served as assistants at East Carolina from 2002-2004.

Sallee said that knowing Roberts does not serve as any specific advantage in the match up, but coaching against someone he knows is always a struggle as he hates seeing a friend fail.

“It makes it tough when you work with someone like (Roberts,) you want her team and her to do well,” Sallee said. “It’s just like (having friends coaching at) Morehead State or Cincinnati, you hate to see them lose or not play well. But none of that really matters because you’ve got to be ready to go. (Roberts) is doing a good job and has a good program over there. I just have to make sure that she doesn’t on Thursday.”

The Panthers (10-6, 4-1 OVC enter Thursday’s contest looking to get back on track after suffering their first conference loss, a 58-51 defeat at Southeast Missouri, on Saturday.

Sallee said that practice has gone well leading up to Thursday’s game and that the players are eager to put Saturday’s loss behind them.

“Things in practice have been intense and we’ve all been a little bit in a bad mood. It’s like it should be,” Sallee said. “There’s a sense of urgency and they’re very, very eager to get on the floor and put Saturday behind us even further.”

Galligan, who scored a career-high 31 points in the home victory against Eastern Kentucky last season, said that the team has put an effort throughout the week in practice at fixing some of the mistakes they made against Southeast Missouri.

“We’ve talked as a team and we’re making a conscience effort to work on some of the things we need to get better at,” Galligan said. “People have been getting on each other, not necessarily in a bad way, but encouraging people to work on boxing out, crashing the O-boards, taking care of the ball. Everyone’s playing harder against each other so that when we face pressure in games we’re able to handle it and we’re used to it.”

After today’s game the Panthers continue their two-game home stand on Saturday as they welcome OVC foe Morehead State at 3 p.m. in Lantz Arena.

Collin Whitchurch can be reached at 581-7944 or [email protected].