Before talking about the upcoming Eastern women’s basketball season, we should recap the handful of changes over the summer.

The man at the top, former head coach Brady Sallee, left Eastern and took a head coaching job at Ball State – a bigger school.

This was bound to happen sooner rather than later.

Sallee was also a finalist for the head coaching job at Bowling Green in the spring, among potentially a handful of other openings we didn’t know about.

I saw Sallee at Dairy Queen, holding an ice cream cone, with his kids about a week before he announced he was taking a new job. He shouted to me, “Don’t tell my team I’m here,” as if they’d rag on him for surrendering to his taste buds.

He was gone before they probably had a chance.

After leaving, Sallee immediately endorsed Lee Buchanan for the Eastern opening. Buchanan got the job. Former assistant coach Rachel Galligan followed Sallee to Ball State, as was expected.

Former assistant coach Quacy Timmons headed to the southeastern U.S. to be closer to her husband and family, who were living down there. This, reportedly, was going to happen regardless of Sallee staying or going.

Ripples of Sallee’s departure were minor throughout the team – only one player left. Jessica Parker transferred to Southern Indiana. She was the second or third player off the bench last season.

The rest of the team stuck together, no recruits rescinded their commitments as far as we know and only Chantelle Pressley graduated as the lone senior on the roster.

Now to present day: We are days away from the first regular season game against Indiana State in Terre Haute, Ind.

As for predictions and expectations, here are some that should be rock solid:

• Seniors Mariah King, Sydney Mitchell and Ta’Kenya Nixon will finish their careers as 1,000-point scorers. Senior Kelsey Wyss will be just short of 1,000, but will have the best season of her career.

• Nixon will narrowly become the program’s all-time leading scorer. If she manages to score her career average of 15.3 points per game, she’ll surpass Galligan’s record in her 30th game this season. Keep in mind, Nixon’s average has gone up almost one point every season. Last year, she averaged 16.3 points per game.

• King will have the best season of her career, switching between playing power forward and center. She scored 17 points as the starting power forward in the Panthers’ exhibition game on Sunday.

• Back problems will keep Mitchell from having a fast start to the season, but she will have an unquestionably important role in the Panthers’ success. In games where Mitchell scored 14 or more points last season, Eastern was 10-1.

• Red-shirt sophomore Katlyn Payne will emerge as a top bench player on the team, coming on strong at the end of last season. Payne may start in place of Mitchell if her back keeps her out of games. Payne did so in Sunday’s exhibition and scored a game-high 20 points.

• Junior forward Taryn Olson will have a big year. Buchanan said she’s playing with a lot of confidence. She’s only averaged 1.2 points per game in her career.

• Even in breaking the program’s scoring record, Nixon will not be the Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year – making it three consecutive seasons she could’ve won it. I’d be happily proven wrong.

• The senior class of Wyss, Nixon, King and Mitchell will become the winningest class in program history with 14 wins this season. The class has been a part of teams that have won 23, 18 and 22 games each season.

It’s going to be an exciting season with all that could happen, but most exciting of all is going to be watching this team to see if they can win the OVC Tournament in this senior class’ final season.

Alex McNamee can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].