Poor shooting and turnovers have resulted in an 0-2 start for Eastern’s men’s basketball team.

The Panthers lost 67-55 against South Dakota State and 77-46 against Ball State. They committed a combined 34 turnovers in the two games and shot 37 percent and 31 percent, respectively.

Twenty-one of the 34 turnovers came against Ball State. The 21 turnovers were the highest mark in three years. Those turnovers led to 24 Ball State points.

Eastern head coach Mike Miller attributed the shooting problems to poor shot selection.

“I think we were impatient, I don’t know how many fade-away shots we took, I didn’t think we did a very good job of setting anybody up,” Miller said.

The Panthers shooting troubles were not just from inside of the three-point line. They struggled even more from three-point land, shooting 25 percent combined in both games. They also shot a combined 57 percent from the free throw line.

Senior guard Tyler Laser agreed with his coach and said the team never got into the flow of the game.

“We had no flow throughout the game offensively or defensively, if you don’t have guys that are willing to do whatever it takes to win your going to have a rough go at it,” Laser said.

Defense struggles in losses

Eastern gave up a combined 144 points in their two losses this weekend. This comes to an average of 72 points a game. Last season the Panthers gave up an average of 65.3 points per game.

The Panthers allowed South Dakota State to shoot 50 percent from three, while last year they held opponents to 35 percent shooting from the three-point line.

Junior guard Jeremy Granger said the Panthers did not play as a team, which led to the two losses.

“We played real soft, we didn’t play as a team, we didn’t talk to each other on defense,” Granger said. “When things got tough, we spread apart instead of coming together.”

Eastern also struggled by giving up second chance points. SDSU and Ball State combined for 31 second chance points, while the Panthers managed 15 in both games.

One bright spot on defense was sophomore forward James Hollowell. He blocked seven shots in the two games, five of which came against SDSU.

Rob Mortell can be reached at 581-7944 or at rdmortell@eiu.edu.