Through 16 games, the Eastern women’s basketball team finds itself at the bottom on the Ohio Valley Conference with its 0-4 start to conference play.

Eastern and Morehead State are the only teams left with zero conference wins at this point in the season. Austin Peay leads the OVC with its 3-0 record in conference play. They are the only undefeated team in the OVC with zero losses in conference play.

Despite having no conference wins yet, Morehead State has the number one scoring offense of the OVC teams as they average 82.9 points per games. Other top scoring offences in the league are Belmont and Eastern Kentucky who average 73.2 and 72.4 points per game. Eastern averages 61.1 points a game.

Jacksonville State has the best scoring teams in the conference despite having the worst scoring offense. Belmont also finds themselves at second in the conference in this category also with 64.5 points per game.

Eastern is currently last in the conference in scoring margin, field goal percentage defense, rebounding margin and defensive rebounding. On a positive note, Eastern’s bright spot has been at the free throw line with the second best free throw percentage of 71.1 in the OVC.

The scoring leader right now is KeShunan James from Murray State who averages 21.1 points per game. Not far behind her is Shronda Butts of SIUE who averages 20.6 points a game.

Eastern’s Grace Lennox is tied for second in the league with Darby Maggard from Belmont in assists with an average of five a game. The league leader is Tiasha Gray from Austin Peay who averages 5.1 assists per game.

Lennox is in the top three for minutes played as she averages 35.7 minutes of playing time a game. The league leader is SIUE’s Butts who plays 37 minutes a game. Eastern has 12 games left with only five of those games being on the road. They will be opening a three game home stand on Thursday against Eastern Kentucky. Morehead State and UT Martin will also visit Lantz Arena.

Eastern’s lone win of the season was at home in an overtime thriller against Indiana-Purdue University Indianapolis, which was the first game of the season. Since then, they have gone on to lose 15 straight, but have played some teams close but have not been consistent enough to win. Eastern will have to win nine of the last 12 games to match last year’s win total.

Upcoming OVC games are Tennessee Tech at UT Martin and Jacksonville State at Southeast Missouri on Wednesday.

Eastern will take on Eastern Kentucky in Lantz Arena at 5:15 p.m. Thursday.

Mark Shanahan can be reached at 581-2812 mmshanahan@eiu.edu