The similarities – albeit nearly 40 years apart – are uncanny.
 
The 1976-77 Eastern Washington State College men's basketball team – dubbed the "Screamin' Eagles" by their coach, will be the 14th team inducted in the Eastern Athletics Hall of Fame when ceremonies take place this coming Oct. 1 in Cheney, Wash. Appropriately, the breakfast ceremony for the Hall of Fame's 16th induction class is expected to take place at the EWU Special Events Pavilion (Reese Court), which was in its second year of existence when the '76-77 squad had its historic season.
 
Led by Hall of Fame coach Jerry Krause, that team finished 25-4 to record what is still the second-best winning percentage (.862) in school history, and won a share of the Evergreen Conference and NAIA District I regular season titles. The team had only two seniors, but they were legendary and record-breaking – Hall of Fame All-America forward Ron Cox and talented point guard Ed Waters. Eastern also featured an eventual All-American in Paul Hungenberg and a high-scoring transfer in Mike Heath (University of Washington).
 
Just one year earlier, Eastern finished 21-7 under Krause and also won a share of the league title. The 45 combined wins were the second-most in school history, ranking only behind the 53 in the 1945-46 and 1946-47 school years.
 
Fast-forward to the current era, and the Eagles have had 44 wins in back-to-back seasons to set the high-water mark in 33 seasons as a member of NCAA Division I. This year's team was led by a senior forward who broke Cox's career scoring record, and a talented senior graduate transfer at point guard who led the Big Sky Conference in scoring. Eastern also featured two high-scoring underclassmen, including one player who had the first triple-double in school history.
 
Even before the 1976-77 season began, Krause knew he had team to be reckoned with, even though Cox and Waters were the lone seniors on a team of 16.
 
"We're a relatively young team," he said at the time, "but our two seniors are outstanding. I feel the two most important positions on a basketball team are point guard and inside forward. And we have two of the best at the small-college level in the country. And they're both improved."
 
Cox earned first team All-America honors for the Eagles in the 1976-77 season after averaging 16.7 points and 12.7 rebounds per game while making a school-record 66.0 percent of his shots. Cox finished his career with school records of 1,741 points and 1,273 rebounds, and it took 39 years for his scoring record to fall this past season by Venky Jois (1,803). Jois also broke Cox's single season field goal percentage record with a .679 percentage. Cox's rebounds record still stands.
 
Cox joined his fellow senior, Waters, as All-NAIA District 1 and All-Evergreen Conference first team performers. Waters averaged 11.0 assists per game which is a school record that still stands, and also averaged 6.4 points per game. Waters finished his career with 763 assists, 332 ahead of the No. 2 player on Eastern's all-time list. He set a variety of school and Evergreen Conference records, many of which still stand.
 
Hungenberg, who would become a third team All-American for the Eagles a year later, averaged 14.3 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.2 assists on 52 percent shooting from the field and 85 percent from the free throw line. Heath also averaged 14.3 points, and Eugene Glenn averaged 11.3 points and 8.0 rebounds per game.
 
Cox and Waters were team captains, and Cox won team MVP honors for the third-straight season. Cox was also chosen as most inspirational and Heath was selected as the team's best defender.
 
Eastern made 52.6 percent of its shots from the field that season to set a school record that still stands. Eastern outscored opponents by an average of nearly 18 points per game, which also remains a school record along with team totals for assists (726) and steals (476).
 
The Eagles finished the season as co-champions in the Evergreen Conference with an 11-1 record. Eastern came one victory from a berth to the NAIA Tournament, finishing as the NAIA District 1 runner-up for the second-straight season with a 66-59 loss to Central Washington in the championship game.
 
Eastern opened the NAIA District 1 playoffs with a 73-56 home victory over Simon Fraser, then beat Alaska-Fairbanks 75-53 at Reese Court. That semifinal victory was the 15th during a school-record 31-game home court winning streak that began on Dec. 1, 1976 and was ended on Nov. 27, 1978.
 
In the championship game, played in Ellensburg, Eastern fell 66-59 to their arch-rivals. The home court advantage, interestingly, came down to a miniscule .029 difference between Central and Eastern in a percentage formula used to determine seeding. With road wins and victories over winning teams weighing large in the point system, Central averaged 2.737 points in its 19 games versus NAIA competition while EWU had a 2.708 average in 24 games. The difference came when Central beat Southern Oregon on Feb. 11 to gain three points, but because that loss gave Southern Oregon a losing record, Eastern's 98-86 win the next night was worth only two points.
 
Cox was inducted into the Eastern Athletics Hall of Fame with the second class of inductees in 1998. Krause earned induction into the Eastern Athletics Hall of Fame in 2005
 
Only Eastern's 1945-46 team had a better winning percentage in what is now more than 100 years of Eastern basketball history (108 through the 2015-16 season). That team was 31-4 (.886) and was inducted into the Eastern Athletics Hall of Fame in 2003.
 
Team Members: Ron Cox, Robert Gatlin, Eugene Glenn, Martin Harpole, Mike Heath, Paul Hungenberg, Jeff Miller, Ray Palmer, Terry Pepple, Terry Reed, Wayne Robinson, Jim Savage, Ed Waters, Vic White.
 
Coaching Staff: Jerry Krause (head coach), Ron Raver (assistant), Larry Hinshaw (graduate assistant), John Mulvenna (graduate assistant), Greg Smith (graduate assistant).


 
1976-77 Screamin' Eagles -- Front Row (left to right): Program Assistant Dave Stocker, Tom Rife, Wayne Robinson, Paul Hungenberg, Vic White, Terry Pepple, Robert Gatlin, Ed Waters, Terry Reed, Coach Larry Hinshaw. Back Row: Head Coach Jerry Krause, Mike Heath, Ray Palmer, Ron Cox, Martin Harpole, Jeff Miller, Rick Piper, Jim Savage, Eugene Glenn, Coach Ron Raver.