Eastern’s men’s basketball team will begin its Ohio Valley Conference season today against Tennessee State at Lantz Arena. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.

The Panthers enter the game with a record of 2-4; however, they have recovered from an 0-3 start to the season. TSU currently sits at 1-5, but it has three players who average more than 13 points per game.

The Tigers are led in scoring and rebounding by junior forward Kenny Moore, who is averaging 14.3 points per game to go along with 7.8 rebounds.

Eastern head coach Mike Miller said the Panthers are improving as the season progresses because the players are getting more comfortable in the system.

“I think we made some progress (over the Thanksgiving break), we took advantage of the time we had to practice,” Miller said.

TSU is averaging 68 points per game, while the Panthers are averaging 56.8 points a game.

Miller said TSU’s record does not tell the whole story because they have played a lot of good teams on the road.

“Their top five guys can all score, they are really athletic, they are long and get a lot of offensive rebounds,” Miller said. “There are a lot of things that they do well.”

The Tigers are averaging close to 15 offensive rebounds per game, which could be trouble for the Panthers as they give up an average 10 offensive rebounds.

Eastern has struggled with turnovers early this season, averaging over 14 per game. This is one area that Miller said the Panthers focused on in practice.

“(We focused) on consistency, playing at a better speed, playing harder longer,” Miller said. “We need to develop better depth, our bench guys need to give us something outstanding whether it’s defense or setting up other people for shots.”

The Tigers lead the all-time series with the Panthers 23-19; however, the Panthers swept TSU last season, with a triple-overtime win in Nashville and a 66-61 win in Lantz Arena.

Miller said he is happy with how the team is progressing and feels that they should be more than prepared for TSU.

“Nobody has really surprised us or really stood out, but we do have guys that have moved forward a bit,” Miller said.

The freshmen on the Panthers are steadily receiving more playing time. Freshman forward Alfonzo McKinnie played 13 minutes against South Dakota State, he scored six points and also grabbed six rebounds. Both stats were career highs.

Miller said the young players are starting to adapt to the system better with more time in practice and in the game.

“I think (the freshmen) are doing OK, I think it was a tough way for them to start with four of six games on the road,” Miller said. “With the schedule being so tough we did not get the young guys as many minutes as we would have liked.”

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