For the third-straight year, the Eastern women’s basketball team started the season with a new head coach, after the sudden departure of former coach Lee Buchanan.

On May 16, 2013, Eastern Athletic Director Barbara Burke hired former Ohio State assistant and WNBA All-Star Debbie Black as the Panthers’ head coach.

At the beginning of the season, Black wanted to find the identity of the 2013-2014 team and said before the season started she wanted to find out exactly who they are.

“Obviously being the OVC champions and losing four starters, six seniors, I think they are trying to find out who this team is, not who they were,” she said. “It is the mindset of we’re going to let everybody know who we are.”

The season with a record of 3-6, as Black quickly noticed that there was not much depth on the roster and having players play bigger roles for the first time in their careers.

Eastern faced the challenge of only having one returning starter and five brand new players, which included four freshmen and one transfer.

Black was forced to start four players that had not had the experience of playing so many minutes in a season. Junior Sabina Oroszova, who started last season, was obligated to play almost double the minutes she played in last year.

Jordyne Crunk and Katlyn Payne had their minutes jump up to almost double what they played in the previous season as well.

Morgan Palombizio’s minutes more than tripled from last season, jumping from seven minutes played per game to 26 this season.

Black had the same starting lineup throughout all 28 games that included Taryn Olson, along with Palombizio, Payne, Crunk and Oroszova.

Oroszova and Payne ended the season as Eastern’s leading scorers, averaging 16.9 and 13.8 points per game, respectively.

The Panthers did get contributions from Erica Brown, who was one of the first two players off the bench along with transfer Arnisha Thomas.

Brown and Thomas averaged 14.2 and 12.9 minutes played per game, respectively.

Brown said she was proud of the way her team came around with losing so much from the previous season.

“I wish we could have gone farther than what we managed,” she said. “Our team did come a long way. We lost some good seniors last year and we did manage to come together as a team to play together.”

The Panthers ended their season with a record of 12-16 and a 7-10 record in the OVC and played their last game in Nashville, Tenn., where they lost to Eastern Kentucky in the first round of the Ohio Valley Conference tournament.

After that loss, Black reflected on her first year being a head coach.

“I would like to think we can go a little further,” she said. “We went through our ups and downs. I expected to go further and I expect to go further in the future. That’s who I am, where I come from and what I believe in. We hope to make strides to do that.”

Bob Reynolds can be reached at 581-2812 or rjreynolds@eiu.edu.