The couple thousand fans that show up at 7:30 p.m. for Eastern men’s basketball games should come a few hours earlier and watch the women’s game.

They might see a victory that way.

Women’s basketball practice started this week and their season looks promising. The young team has only four upperclassmen on the roster, but the Panthers still return three starters.

One of those starters is sophomore Rachel Galligan, last season’s Ohio Valley Conference freshman of the year. The 6-foot-2 forward led the conference with 61 blocks, also a school record.

Galligan is also the leading returning scorer and rebounder for the Panthers with 10.7 points and 5.8 boards per game.

The two other returning starters are sophomores Ellen Canale and Megan Edwards.

Edwards ran the point last season and tallied 110 assists but also turned the ball over 124 times.

Edwards might not run the point this season.

That role might be given to super-recruit Ashley Thomas, Edwards AAU teammate on the Illinois Hustle. Head coach Brady Sallee called Edwards “one of the best guards in the state of Illinois” after signing the Moline native last November.

Bringing in Thomas will allow Edwards to bring her long range shooting ability to the off-guard position. Edwards was second on the team with 36 three-pointers.

Canale started all 29 games last season along with Edwards and was third on the team in rebounds, assists, and steals.

Five players on the men’s team either transferred or quit and team leader Josh Gomes graduated. The women’s team lost two starters to graduation in forward Lauren Sims and guard Megan Sparks. Even though Sparks graduated, she will not be missed as she was brought on as an assistant coach.

The Panthers offense last season ran through Sparks as she led the team in minutes played, three pointers and total points.

The offense will change somewhat this season, using more cuts and off-the-ball movement but the stifling defense will be retained this year.

Sallee will use his deep bench to keep his players fresh and active in his pressure defense that will go full-court often.

Sallee is in his third season as head coach and now he has a team made up mostly of his own recruits. His team is young, with almost half of his team made up by his strong recruiting class last year that are now sophomores.

Eastern’s 9-6 start in conference play last year looked promising, especially with significant minutes being played by freshman.

While the Panthers were predicted to finish sixth in the OVC preseason poll, expect them to do better. And much, much better than the men.