Dominique Sims has done a lot of good things for the Eastern women’s basketball team.

The Eastern sophomore guard “stuffs the stats” as Eastern head coach Brady Sallee says.

Sims can grab rebounds. She can score in a multitude of ways through short jumpers, 3-pointers, runners and layups. She can also guard several positions.

But Sims’ and the rest of the team can also work on different aspects of their games as well.

One example is the turnovers, of which the Panthers had 27 on Thursday night against Southeast Missouri.

Good college basketball teams don’t turn the ball over with that frequency.

Sims leads the team in turnovers (97), but it’s hard to blame her in her first season of Division I college basketball.

The Panthers have 508 turnovers and average 19.5 this season. It’s a slight improvement from last season when the Panthers finished with 581 turnovers and averaged 20.

Sims ranks second in the Ohio Valley Conference in 3-point field goal percentage (46.6 percent). In the past four games, Sims had made 11-of-29 field goals, but has not finished in double figures since a double overtime victory against Jacksonville State on Jan. 31. She scored 10 points in the Panthers’ two losses last week.

It’s surprising for a player who averages 9.3 points.

In reality, though, it’s not just Sims fault for not executing. It was a team-wide problem last week. The Panthers scored 41 points against Southeast Missouri. 41 points.

They haven’t scored that few points since last season against Samford. They should easily score more than 41 points with their high-low offense. It’s simple too.

Pass it to junior forward Rachel Galligan or sophomore forward Maggie Kloak. That’s instant inside points from two of the top post players in the league. If they’re double-teamed, they can kick it out to open perimeter players.

Junior guard Ellen Canale, Sims, sophomore guard Jessica Huffman, sophomore guard Thomas, junior forward Lindsey Kluempers or red-shirt sophomore guard Megan Edwards all have the range to be a threat from beyond the arc.

Watching Thursday night’s game in Cape Girardeau, Mo., was frustrating. It was nice to see the team turn it around on Saturday night against Murray State with 59 points, but again, it was a loss.

The biggest games of the season were hard fought, and Eastern came out short on both ends. And it leaves them in a tricky situation.

A win against Murray State would have allowed the Panthers to secure a better seeding for the OVC Tournament, but with the loss against the Racers (18-7, 12-5) the Panthers might get pushed back to the No. 3 or No. 4 seed.

The Panthers split the regular season series with the Racers, but Murray State has the tiebreaker advantage against Eastern with one win against first-place Southeast Missouri.

The Panthers can secure at least a third-place finish in the conference if Murray State loses one of its next games and Eastern wins its final two conference games.

But they are going to have to work on not turning the ball over. They are going to have to be efficient on the offensive end.

They will have to do all of these things because at the end of the conference race and in the conference tournament, there is no room for error.

Kevin Murphy can be reached at 581-7944 or kjmurphy@eiu.edu.