GAME NOTES: at Eastern Illinois (PDF)
By Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
CHARLESTON, Ill. – It's time to take the show back out on the road. The Tennessee Tech women's basketball spent almost all of December in the friendly confines of the Hooper Eblen Center, only playing once on the road in the Golden Eagles' season opener at Chattanooga.
On Saturday, they'll hit the road once again as Tech heads to Eastern Illinois.
Due to guidelines issued by the state of Illinois, fans will not be allowed at Saturday's game. The game, set to tip off at 1 p.m., will be broadcast on ESPN+ (subscription required) with Rob Calhoun and Rameen Karsbassloon handling play-by-play and analyst duties.
Saturday will also be a chance for the Golden Eagles to return to their winning ways as Tech (3-2, 1-1 Ohio Valley Conference) saw its three-game winning streak snapped Wednesday night against Tesia Thompson and a hot-shooting Southeast Missouri squad.
Milestones could be reached Saturday as well as senior guard Jordan Brock needs two made 3-pointers to become the Golden Eagles' all-time leading 3-point shooter, trailing assistant coach Allison Clark 225-224. Senior guard Kesha Brady also needs four points to become Tech's 32nd 1,000-point scorer in program history.
While Tech has had recent success against the Panthers – head coach Kim Rosamond currently holds a 4-1 record against the Panthers – Saturday's contest will continue to be a battle. EIU enters Saturday with a 3-4 record, going 1-1 in league play as the Panthers closed out the pre-Christmas portion of the schedule with a 73-58 victory over SIUE, but dropped an 80-69 decision at Eastern Kentucky on Wednesday.
Abby Wahl leads EIU in scoring and rebounds, averaging a double-double a game with 16.2 points and 10.8 boards a game. The Panthers also have three more players – Lariah Washington, Karle Pace and Morgan Litwiller – averaging double-digit points with 15.2, 13.5 and 10.3 points a game respectively.
As a team, the Panthers are shooting .433 percent, including .364 from 3-point range. They are also shooting .721 from the charity stripe.
For the Golden Eagles, Brady leads the way with an 18.2-point average, followed by Mackenzie Coleman (11.6), Anna Jones (11.4) and Brock (10.8). Jones is averaging 6.8 boards a game, while Brady is pulling down 6.0 caroms a night.
Against the Colonels, EIU had a 43-35 lead at the intermission, but the Panthers struggled in the third quarter as EKU outscored them 22-10 to erase the deficit and take a 57-53 lead after three quarters. EKU extended its lead in the final 10 minutes to secure the final 11-point margin.
Karle Pace led the way for EIU with 21 points, while Taylor Steele scored 16 and Lariah Washington added 12. Wahl, EIU's leading scorer, did not play against the Colonels, who are off to a 3-0 start in the league.
The all-time series sees Tech leading 29-16 as the Golden Eagles won 20 of the first 23 contests, until EIU rifled off nine straight wins between December 2006 and January 2010. Tech has won five of the last six meetings, with the last loss coming in Charleston in 2017.
The Golden Eagles won the last meeting 75-62 in Cookeville as Brady led the way with 20 points, followed by Coleman with 15 and Brock with 14. The game also saw Tech continue a nine-game winning streak, including six straight wins in OVC play.
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