Issue date: 3/5/09 Section: OVC Tournament Guide

The Panthers huddle prior to starting lineups introductions Tuesday night. (Eric Hiltner/The Daily Eastern News)

In no way is the Eastern women's basketball team content with earning its trip to Nashville, Tenn., which they did Tuesday night by beating Tennessee Tech 71-65 in Lantz Arena.

For a team that jumped from 10 wins four years ago to an Ohio Valley Conference Tournament title game berth a year ago, anything short of a championship would be considered a disappointment.

But that should come as no surprise.

"Our ultimate goal is to win the tournament, and we feel like settling for anything less would be a shame," senior forward Rachel Galligan said. "That's what we're after, to win a championship. We've worked this hard to get this far, and it'd be a shame to let it slip away."

This Panthers squad came into the season with soaring expectations, going beyond any in program history, and they met them.

Sure, they came up a hop, skip and jump shy of a regular season title, but they know that as great as a regular season title would have been, only the conference tournament champion earns a bid to the Big Dance, aka, the NCAA Tournament.

But even with those expectations, Eastern head coach Brady Sallee would not consider this season a disappointment, regardless of what happens this weekend.

"It's hard to look at a 23-plus win season and think you're going to be disappointed," Sallee said. "But clearly after last year, our goals centered around getting back down there and winning this thing."

Regardless of what happens this weekend, this year's squad will go down as the best in school history, with the only team you could possibly argue against it being the 1987-88 team that went to the NCAA Tournament.

But winning the tournament would cement its status in Eastern lore.

It would be something to remember, something to be proud of and something that 10, 15, 20 years down the road students and alumni would remember when they see the banner hanging high in Lantz Arena.

Can they do it? Absolutely. But this team knows the challenges that lie ahead. Not only do they have to face a Tennessee State squad that has a 10-minute drive to the Sommet Center in Nashville, but the top-seeded, and arch-rival Racers likely await in the title game. The Panthers have lost four straight games against Murray State, including an OVC Tournament Championship game loss to them a year ago, a loss that left a bitter taste in the players' mouths that still lingers today.

Win or lose, in championship or defeat, this year's team will go down in history.

But the history's final page has yet to be written.


Collin Whitchurch can be reached at 581-7944 or cfwhitchurch@eiu.edu.

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