Eastern head women’s basketball coach Brady Sallee took the Eastern women’s basketball program to new heights this past season.

The Panthers finished with a winning record at 19-13 record and 15-5 in the Ohio Valley Conference. The program finished in a second-way tie in the OVC and made it all the way to the OVC Tournament championship game before losing to Murray State.

“We did a lot of good things this year,” Sallee said. “We had put our ourselves in a great position. It was a good year for us. We grew quite a bit as a basketball team.”

Sallee has gone 49-68 in four seasons. He is the first coach to post double-digit wins in four consecutive seasons since former Eastern head coach John Klein did it from 1994-1998.

In Eastern’s 12 year-membership of the OVC, Sallee directed the program to its best finish in the league and guided Eastern to its first ever appearance in the OVC Tournament Championship game.

“I guess if you put a neat ribbon around it and tie it up, we’ve got ourselves at the top of the league,” Sallee said. “We want to be the absolute at the top of the league. And that’s the next step.”

Eastern returns all five starters next season, and all players except for senior guard Brittney Coleman and sophomore guard Jessica Huffman. Huffman was the 2006-07 OVC Freshman of the Year.

Coleman did not play during the 2007-08 because of a knee injury and Huffman decided to transfer.

Sallee said he wants to stick around for the next couple of years and try to keep building the program.

His contract was extended to the end of the 2008-09 season by a vote of confidence by the Board of Trustees in April 2006.

“I don’t worry too much about what I can’t control,” Sallee said. “I just coach women’s basketball. (Building a program) is something I’ve dreamed about for a long, long time.”

And Sallee said he could do it with the players, coaches and other intangibles around him.

“We’re in a position to do it,” Sallee said. “We understand it’s going to take a lot of work.”

Former Eastern athletic director Rich McDuffie said at the time when Sallee was hired picking a candidate who would stick around was important but would like to give him an opportunity to move up the ladder if that day comes.

“If after two conference championships, a school like Illinois comes calling, it’s our responsibility for us to shake his hand and say it’s time to move on,” McDuffie said in April 2004. “If it comes to that, we’d be happy to do it.”

Current Eastern interim athletic director Ken Baker said if any contracts are renewed or extended it would be the decision of the new athletic director.

Baker said he would sit down with both basketball coaches and talk with them since the season just ended.

Sallee has recruited and developed his own players.

This includes Eastern junior forward Rachel Galligan.

Galligan was the 2005-06 OVC Freshman of the Year in Sallee’s second year. Galligan has gone to earn First-Team All-Conference honors twice and has earned the reputation as one of the top players in the league.

One of Sallee’s other recruits, red-shirt sophomore guard Dominique Sims, earned All-OVC Newcomer honors this season. Sims was second on the team in scoring, second in rebounding and third in blocks this past season.

Sallee’s first recruiting class, this year’s juniors, have made two conference tournaments in three years.

“It was real exciting to have a lot of firsts,” said Eastern junior guard Ellen Canale. “We’re going in the right direction. We still a lot of have to do. People may have not seen it. We kept working hard. We kept working out. We had this season. It’s a great feeling.”

Eastern sophomore forward Marie Baker could hardly describe her feelings about the team’s success.

“It’s hard to explain how it felt,” Baker said. “We planned all this out. We talked about our goals in the postseason. It was just so rewarding.”

Sallee said he wants his team to focus for next season, and the Panthers look to be one of the top teams in the conference.

“Now the challenge is not to be this one-hit wonder,” Sallee said. “We all understand we have a good basketball team intact. The challenge is to build and duplicate what we did this year.”

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