The players on the Eastern women’s basketball team had Tuesday and Wednesday off to rest their minds and bodies to prepare for a long road stretch coming up.

Junior guard Kelsey Wyss said the two days off not only helped players rest their bodies, but also helped them think about how they need to improve their individual game.

Wyss said she needed to work on her shot, so she practiced a lot of shooting Thursday.

Junior guard Ta’Kenya Nixon said the days off helped her body “regenerate and get ready for the battles to come.”

Head coach Brady Sallee said he hates days off because it gets the team out of rhythm.

“Mentally its hard to come back from those days and remember what we were emphasizing before,” Sallee said.

Sallee said the team watched film before Thursday’s practice to help them remember how they’d played in the games this past weekend and how to improve.

“We watched film today so we definitely saw a lot of no-no’s,” Nixon said.

Wyss said the team got to see their mistakes in gap defense on film. She said watching themselves on gap defense was the “highlight” of the film session Thursday.

With Thursday being their first long day of practice in a few days, Sallee said the team did pretty well, especially since the game plan was introduced the same day.

Sallee said now the team will be tested Friday, when they’re scheduled for a 6 a.m. practice, before flying to Jacksonville, Ala., in the afternoon, and then practicing in Jacksonville at night.

“We’ll see if we’re tough enough,” Sallee said.

The Panthers will play Jacksonville State Saturday at 2 p.m., and although Jacksonville State’s record may not look the part, Sallee said the team is focused on them.

Nixon said Jacksonville State has been rebounding really well in the past few games, which has gotten the Panthers’ attention.

Sallee said Jacksonville State is doing to other teams what the Panthers like to do – winning the rebounding battle.

The Gamecocks have outrebounded their opponent in the last three games; however, their record in those games is 1-2.

“It’s real easy to get caught up in their record, but once you start looking at how they play at home and start crunching some numbers you see their three leading scorers are all shooting about 10 percentage points higher at home than they are overall,” Sallee said.

Since Eastern is at the top of the Ohio Valley Conference, Wyss said she expects to get the best effort from the Gamecocks.

“It’s their home court, they’re going to bring it,” Wyss said.

Alex McNamee can be reached at 581-7942 or admcnamee@eiu.edu.