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Within the last three games, Eastern faced three tough opponents within the Ohio Valley Conference in Morehead State, Southern Indiana and Little Rock in less than one week.
Eastern lost two close games against Morehead State (73-66) and Southern Indiana (64-60) on Thursday and Saturday at Groniger Arena.
Eastern and Little Rock faced off at Lindenwood University Monday afternoon to reschedule the initial postponed game.
After a hard fought 40 minutes, the Panthers snapped their seven-game losing streak and defeated Little Rock 56-54.
Within the last three seconds of the game, redshirt junior guard Obadiah Curtis defended what could’ve sent the game into overtime, but ultimately, Little Rock was not able to get a shot off in time.
“The only thing I was thinking was to not foul, that was the biggest thing,” Curtis said. “As far as the whole game, it was a hard-fought game. We played a lot of close games, and we knew we were capable of doing this. Losing those close games hurt.”
Here are three aspects to take away from the Panthers’ past three games:
The senior guard from Chicago had a massive performance throughout the past three games.
Against Morehead State, Shelton recorded a career-high 38 points with one steal, one block and one assist. Shelton’s 38 points was the most from any OVC player in the 2024-2025 season thus far and the most any Eastern player scored since 2004.
Along with his performance against Morehead State, Shelton recorded an additional 12 points and four assists against Southern Indiana.
Monday afternoon, Shelton ended the game with 15 points, two of them sealing the win for the Panthers. Shelton’s two free throws with seconds left in the game helped Eastern snap their seven-game losing streak.
“I just wanted to take my time for the free throws and knock them in,” Shelton said.
2. Injuries and sickness
After two weeks of school, there have been some fresh germs spreading around, and the Panthers got firsthand experience with being exposed to new germs.
Shelton, junior guard Zion Fruster and senior guard Carson Prost did not practice Wednesday due to sickness of the flu.
Although Shelton ended up playing on Thursday, Fruster and Prost were ruled out and didn’t return until Saturday.
“Coming in, I knew we were shorthanded with guys battling injuries and sickness including myself, but I wanted to make sure I was available for my team,” Shelton said.
Along with Fruster and Prost, four Panthers were not available due to injuries: forwards Sekou Kalle and Blake Goodman and guards Malik Olafioye and Isaiah Griffin.
Kalle was the only one out of the four that dressed out for Saturday and Monday.
3. First half performances versus second half comebacks
Throughout the three games, the Panthers went into each halftime losing. For each game, the Panthers scored less than 30 points going into halftime.
The difference between the game against Little Rock and their two previous games: the attention to detail and the amount of focus the team had for the last 20 minutes.
“As a team, we got down, but we stayed focused and poised and took it one possession at a time, making a run down the stretch,” senior guard Corey Sawyer Jr. said.
Against the Trojans, the largest margin between Eastern and Little Rock was eight points. Shelton said he did not want that number to rise, so the team maintained poise and composure throughout the rest of the game.
“It was a hard-fought win,” Shelton said. “We were down eight points, and we didn’t let the margin increase. We just battled back.”
With about six minutes left in the game, Curtis huddled up the team and gave words of encouragement to help the Panthers continue to maintain control and not spiral under pressure.
“I said something along the lines, in the middle of the huddle, it was about six minutes left, ‘We’ve been before. We know the feeling. Let’s pull this one out,’” Curtis said.
This talk Curtis had with the team ultimately helped the Panthers throughout the rest of the game. Fruster said the team stayed together and executed their assignments late in the game to help them seal the win over Little Rock.
“We got tired of the feeling of losing, and we came together as a team to finish this game out strong together to pull out the win,” Fruster said.
The Panthers are currently 6-15 overall with a 2-8 OVC record.
Their next game is against Western Illinois with a tipoff time scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in Macomb.
Zaria Flippin can be reached at 581-2812 or at zhflippin@eiu.edu.