A big hot stretch in the first half and solid defense made the difference on a breakthrough night for the Eagles.
 
The Eastern Washington University men's basketball team led from start-to-finish for the sixth time in its last eight games, and the Eagles registered their first Big Sky Conference road win of the season with an 84-73 victory at Northern Arizona Thursday (Feb. 4) at the Walkup Skydome in Flagstaff, Ariz.
 
Four Eagles scored in double figures, led by the 28 of senior graduate transfer Austin McBroom. Sophomore Bogdan Bliznyuk and senior Venky Jois added double-doubles for the Eagles, who kept themselves in the hunt for one of four first-round berths in the league tournament in March.
 
Eastern had a torrid stretch of 13 makes in 19 attempts (68 percent) – including seven 3-pointers – to turn a three-point lead in the first half into a 14-point advantage. Eastern led by as many as 24 and no fewer than 10 in the second half in improving to 6-4 in the league.
 
 "The great part is how we played in the first 30 minutes, and then had a big enough lead to close out the game," said Eastern head coach Jim Hayford.  
 
The Eagles held NAU to 36 percent shooting from the field in the first half, and held NAU's leading scorer – Kris Yanku (15.0 per game) -- to just two points on an 0-of-5 shooting night. Eastern led for 39:45 of the game and, for the third-straight outing, never trailed and was not tied.
 
"We played like we have been playing at home," said Hayford, whose team is 8-0 at Reese Court this season. "We played 40 minutes and came in here and got a road win. It's what you want to do. If you are the better team, you want to come in in the first half and take the game away from the other team. Then you answer in the beginning of the second half and get separation -- we did a really good job with that. I'm proud of our team."
 
 
 
Won-Lost Records . . .  
 
* The Eagles are now 12-10 overall and 6-4 in the league, with a 4-10 record on the road perfect 8-0 mark at home. In league games, EWU is 5-0 at Reese Court and 1-4 on the road.
 
* Northern Arizona is now 3-18 overall and 1-9 in the league, and has a seven-game losing streak.
 
 
 
What It Means . . .
 
* The road win has put the Eagles in a great position to finish the year with a winning record and earn one of four first-round byes in the Big Sky Conference Tournament March 8-12 in Reno. Eastern's first road breakthrough of the league season moved Eastern from a four-way tie for fourth into a three-way tie for third in the Big Sky standings. Eastern is tied at 6-4 with Idaho and North Dakota, just ahead of Idaho State at 5-4.
 
 
 
What's Next . . .
 
* Eastern plays Saturday (Feb. 6) at Southern Utah, which fell to Idaho 68-44 on Thursday. The Thunderbirds are now 4-16 overall and 2-8 in the league, and have lost their last four outings. Eastern soundly defeated both NAU and SUU earlier this season at home, knocking off the Thunderbirds 106-80 and NAU two days later by a 96-73 score.
 
* Following the game at SUU, the Eagles return to Reese Court to face North Dakota (6:05 p.m. on Feb. 11) and Northern Colorado (2 p.m. on Feb. 13) in rematches league-opening losses for the Eagles. Eastern lost 96-90 at UNC on Dec. 31, then lost two days later at UND by a 79-71 score.
 
 
 
Keys to Game . . .
 
* Eastern's shooting wasn't always consistent, but the Eagles did improve greatly upon a 1-of-20 shooting performance from the 3-point arc in its last outing. The Eagles made seven treys during a 13-of-19 hot stretch against NAU, and that helped them weather stretches in which they made 2-of-11 in the first half and 2-of-10 in the second half. In the game, the Eagles made 13-of-34 3-point shots for 38 percent and made 45 percent overall.
 
 
 
Top Performers . .
 
* Sophomore Bogdan Bliznyuk finished with his fourth double-double in the last six games, hitting a career-high six 3-pointers and finishing with 22 points and 10 rebounds. It was his fifth double-double of the season and seventh of his career. Earlier this season against Northern Arizona, the sophomore had EWU's first triple-double in school history.
 
* Senior graduate transfer Austin McBroom hit 7-of-16 shots overall, 4-of-10 from the 3-point stripe and 10-of-12 from the free throw line to finish with 22 points. He also had six assists and three steals.
 
* Senior Venky Jois, who was ranked third in NCAA Division I entering the game with a .676 shooting percentage, made 6-of-8 shots against the Lumberjacks to finish with a double-double with 14 points, 11 rebounds and three blocked shots. He now has seven double-doubles this season and 33 in his career.
 
* Junior Felix Von Hofe was the fourth Eagle in double figures, making 3-of-10 3-pointers and 3-of-4 free throws to finish with 12 points. He also had five rebounds.
 
 
 
Turning Point . . .
 
* Eastern led early 5-0 and never trailed in the first half. But the Eagles made just four of their first 14 shots and the Lumberjacks were within 12-9 with 12:49 to play. However, the Eagles got hot and went on an 11-3 run to open a 23-12 advantage.
 
 
 
Key Stats . . .
 
* Eastern has now led for 117:23 out of 120 total minutes – 98 percent -- in its last three games, and has not trailed (tied for the other 2:37). The Eagles led for 38:25 versus Sacramento State and 39:13 against Portland State on Jan. 28 to continue that recent trend. Versus PSU, EWU opened a double-digit lead it never relinquished at 16-4 just 3:40 into the game, and led by 20 or more for the last 26:21 of the game and 27:13 total.
 
* Eastern has now led for 220:53 out of 240 minutes – 92 percent -- in its last six victories. In a three-game homestand in January, EWU led 113:30 out of a total of 120 possible minutes, sank 57 percent of their shots (99-of-174) and had an average winning margin of 21.0 points per game. Eastern averaged 92 points per game while allowing an average of 71. But proving just how difficult it is to win on the road, Eastern led Montana on Jan. 23 for just 3:29 and two nights earlier led MSU for just 5:23.
 
 
 
Team Highlights . . .
 
 * Late in the first half, Eastern nailed three-straight 3-pointers by three different players – Austin McBroom, Bogdan Bliznyuk and Felix Von Hofe -- to lead 38-24 late in the half. Eastern led at intermission 41-27, then had a 12-2 run early in the second half to open a 53-31 lead with 15:16 left. Eastern eventually took its biggest lead of the night at 62-37 with 13:18 to play.
 
 
 
Notables . . .
 
* Senior Venky Jois, only the third player in the 53-year history of the Big Sky Conference to have more than 1,600 points and 900 rebounds in his career, inched closer to the EWU career scoring record. Now with 1,630 points as an Eagle, he is only 111 points behind the school record of 1,741 held by Ron Cox (1974-77). Jois' school-record total of 224 blocked shots are 23 from the league record of 247 (Brian Qvale, Montana, 2008-11). Jois also has 920 rebounds in his career to rank third in school history.
 
* Eastern has now led at halftime in 16 of 21 games this season, and has a 12-4 record in those 16 games.
 
 
 
More Comments from Head Coach Jim Hayford . . .
 
On Win: "It's great, but we have to credit coach (Jack) Murphy at NAU. He's teaching a young team how to finish out games and fight. We outrebounded them and knew we could go inside on NAU, and we had double-doubles from Venky and Bogdan. Austin scored 28 and we made 45 percent. It's a really good win. The game had so many possessions in the last 10 minutes – give NAU credit, they were making some baskets."
 
On Youth of NAU versus Experience of EWU: "When our team was young three years ago, we had to use every possession as a learning and teaching opportunity. What our team did at the beginning of this game is to say, 'let's go be us and impose our will.' That's good teams do, and we do have a veteran starting lineup. We can shoot free throws better than we did in the second half in order to pull away. But it was a great win and we'll take it. It was our first conference road win and we're 6-2 and have won three in a row since we've added Julian (Harrell) to the lineup."
 
On Southern Utah: "Now we'll turn our attention to a really tough Southern Utah team. They play really hard. When they are shooting the ball well they are as good as anybody. After they played us, the next game they went down and beat Idaho, then in the next game Idaho beat Montana. We have tremendous respect for Southern Utah. They attack the basket well and they shoot the ball well. They play as hard as any team and are very well-coached. We anticipate a really tough ballgame Saturday."