Eastern won’t have to wait till the regular season to see what it feels like without Megan Sparks.

With Sparks’ graduation in the spring, Eastern had to learn what it’s like to play without the Panthers’ 10th all-time leading scorer during a five-game trip to Italy in August.

Consider it an early success with the Panthers finishing 4-1 against Italian Club teams and the Serbian national team.

A new offense is one of the pieces Eastern head coach Brady Sallee has installed into a team that finished tied for sixth in the Ohio Valley Conference and ended the year on a seven-game losing streak.

The new offense will be put into motion at 7 p.m. Friday, marking the Panthers’ first official practice.

While last year’s offense focused mostly on Sparks (15.9 points per game), this year’s offense will rely more on improvisation with each player reading off the other.

“I finally feel like we have a group where we can release the whole system,” Sallee said. “We still want to get out and run, but last year we got tired at the end of the year. Every player, especially the freshmen, hit the wall.”

With the new offense designed to create balance, the Panthers will still look to Rachel Galligan, who’s coming off a solid season where she was named OVC Freshman of the Year.

Galligan said the offense is not only beneficial to her, but the entire team as well.

“It’s not robotic,” Galligan said. “Last year, it was like ABCs, where one person had to go here and then throw the ball there. We’ve got the personnel where it can be successful. A big part of it is getting the ball in the post.”

Sallee was satisfied with his team’s new-look offense in Italy, where the Panthers had a different leading scorer in each game.

Most players were given individual assignments to work on during the off-season, with one collective goal behind each drill: better conditioning.

Sallee bemoans the lack of conditioning for the Panthers’ slide to end last season. After a summer filled with a better focus on conditioning drills, Sallee feels his team will be stronger at the end of the season.

“I feel this is the best shape we’ve ever been in,” Sallee said. “We’re also more athletic than last year with more depth.”

Sophomore guard Ellen Canale agreed with Sallee to a point, but also said the Panthers were just as mentally tired last year as physically.

“A lot of us just got out of high school and didn’t really know what to expect,” Canale said. “I remember the last game of the season, I felt drained. I don’t think that will be the case this year.”

Some of the depth that Sallee speaks of refers to the influx of six incoming freshmen and transfers to a team that has nine players returning from last season.

While Sallee raves about the athleticism of his freshmen, he also points out the improved play of sophomore forward Julie Lipperd.

“Last year we had a little bit of a one-headed monster in the post with Rachel,” Sallee said. “This year, we feel Julie can pick up where Rachel left off.”

Another question Sallee has going into the season is the possibility of moving sophomore Megan Edwards to the two-guard position and possibly plugging in a freshman into the point-guard role.

With Sallee driving to Nashville for the OVC Media Day on Tuesday, he issued a statement that could be heard all the way to Charleston.

“I’d like to come back down here,” he said in reference to the OVC Tournament. “That would be make the whole off-season worth while.”