Eastern’s players couldn’t get the easy win against Southeast Missouri back on Jan. 14 out of their heads in time to start Wednesday’s rematch off positively.

They were expecting the same Redhawks’ team they beat handily, 73-46, in the previous match-up, despite the head coach Brady Sallee’s best efforts this week to convince his team to forget that game.

Junior forward Sydney Mitchell readily admitted after the game the Panthers weren’t prepared for the aggressiveness from the Redhawks. Even so, the Panthers ended up leaving Lantz Arena Wednesday night with a winning score similar to the first, 74-48.

Junior guard Ta’Kenya Nixon said there was a definite difference in the offense the team played in the first 15 minutes of the game compared to the way they usually play.

“We were trying to win the game in the first four minutes,” Nixon said. “In the locker room at half time we looked ourselves in the mirror and asked, ‘Is this really who we are – playing lethargic and not really playing our hardest?'”

The Panthers trailed 21-19 with 7:29 to go in the first half, with the Redhawks shooting 75 percent from the field compared to 35 percent for the Panthers. After that mark in the game, the Panthers went on a 15-2 run to go into the locker room with a lead, 34-24.

But having the lead didn’t feel like it usually does in the halftime locker room. The mirror Nixon said she was looking in may have been broken. Finding out what happened in the halftime locker room depended on who was responding to the postgame question.

“All I can say is (Sallee) told us about ourselves. That’s all I can say,” Mitchell said.

Sallee had a different view of what happened.

“Cookies. Milk. We had some kumbayas, a couple sing-a-longs, and a little dance party. I think they were motivated by that. We’ll leave it at that,” Sallee said.

Sallee said he tried to keep his cool throughout the game because he had been preaching to the team about how winning is a process. That’s why he decided not to rip into them after a “loosey-goosey” shoot around in the pregame.

“You’re not just going to come out every game and win by 40, four minutes into it,” Sallee said. “I didn’t want to preach one thing and then me go cuckoo and counteract what I’m telling them.

“You saw me at the beginning of the second half when (the Redhawks) made a couple shots and I stayed seated. I just let (Eastern) run motion. I didn’t call plays. I wasn’t going to bail them out of this one. They had to work their way out of this on their own.”

Nixon said the team stopped paying so much attention to the scoreboard and the clock, instead focusing on getting defensive stops.

The Redhawks’ 75 percent shooting from the field fell by 30 percentage points by halftime. Then in the second half, Eastern held them to 37 percent shooting.

Mitchell said she and the team came out motivated in the second half after what Sallee said at halftime.

“We’ve heard that side of him before but not really often,” Mitchell said. “When that comes out, the message gets across real quick.”

Nixon was a major part of the Panthers comeback. She scored a season-high 24 points in the game and the first half was all hers, Sallee said.

“First half it was Ta’Kenya 34, SEMO 24 and then we went and ran around the campus and found all of our other players and played with them in the second half,” Sallee said. “She was my best post player, my best guard and she was my best rebounder.”

Nixon had 12 of her 24 points in the first half and it was her back-to-back layup and jumper that gave Eastern a 26-22 lead before halftime.

Mitchell said Nixon’s leadership to take over on the floor helped the Panthers wake up and play hard the rest of the game.

“Her pushing the ball and scoring gets us motivated,” Mitchell said.

The Panthers won the game by 26 points, but Mitchell said it was definitely a wake up call for the team, which is 18-4 overall and 9-0 in the Ohio Valley Conference.

“Teams are getting better now,” Mitchell said. “They’re drawing up different plans. It’s different now.”

Eastern wont have to worry about past performances against teams when it plays Morehead State at 4 p.m. Saturday in Lantz Arena.

Eastern and Morehead State haven’t met this season.

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