Eastern head coach Brady Sallee challenged his team in the locker room during halftime of Saturday’s game against Southeast Missouri, as both teams were tied 26-26.

Sallee said the team did not have the necessary energy or effort in the first half they would need to win a college basketball game.

Sophomore guard Kelsey Wyss said the team knew the way it played was not good enough.

“We knew the first half wasn’t the way we needed to finish the game and you can’t finish a game playing that way,” Wyss said.

Sallee’s halftime speech was not his usual tirade of screaming and yelling, he said; in fact, he said it was more about getting the team ready to play much better in the second half.

“There was no screaming, no yelling, it was very to-the-point, there were a lot of challenges in the room in terms of different individuals and how I thought they were playing,” Sallee said.

In the second half, the Panthers took their field goal percentage from just 30 percent in the first half to 50 in the second half.

“We came out with a lot more energy, we were looking for each other, looking for the right shots and not rushing anything,” Wyss said.

The Panthers greatest improvement from half to half was its three-point shooting percentage. In the first half, the Panthers shot 25 percent (2-of-8) from beyond the arc. In the second half, the Panthers shot 83 percent (5-of-6) from three.

Sallee said his team definitely rose to the challenge as it outscored the Redhawks 48-23 in the second half.

“That’s what good teams do,” Sallee said.

No fouls, no problem

In the first half of Saturday’s game, the Panthers were not getting many foul calls from the referees to go their way.

Despite being frustrated, sophomore forward Mariah King said the team did a good job of keeping its head up and put the ball up strong to the basket.

One of the challenges King had to figure out at halftime was how to get the foul calls to start going her way as she was held to five points in the first half.

“I was told at halftime to keep going into the defense,” King said. “They weren’t calling the fouls but I had to keep going in there to make them call the fouls.”

In the second half, King continued to go to the basket. She scored nine of her 14 points in the second half.

OVC standings update

Tennessee Tech is beginning to build a gap between them and the rest of the conference, as they are 18-4 overall and 12-1 in the conference as the first place team.

Morehead State is in second place with a 10-3 conference record and a 17-7 record overall. Tennessee-Martin is in third place, but only a half game behind Morehead State. Tennessee-Martin has a 9-3 record in the conference.

Austin Peay is the fourth place team with an 8-5 record in the conference. They are a half game ahead of Eastern, which has a 7-5 record in the conference.

Austin Peay is the only team in the top five of the standings with an overall losing record at 9-16.

Jacksonville State is in sixth place with a 6-7 record in the conference. Southeast Missouri and Tennessee State follow Jacksonville State in the standings, respectively.

If the standings stay as is, Eastern would play Tennessee State in the first round of the Ohio Valley Conference tournament in Nashville, Tenn. on March 2.

Eastern beat Tennessee State 77-58 on Dec. 2. The two teams will play again to end the regular season Feb. 26.

Alex McNamee can be reached at 581-7944 or admcnamee@eiu.edu.