Although the Eagles battled to the very end against the Big Sky's best defense, the Eastern Washington University men's basketball team won't be defending its Big Sky Conference tournament title
 
The sixth-seeded and defending champion Eagles fell to third-seeded Idaho 77-73 in a Big Sky Conference Tournament quarterfinal game Thursday (March 10) at the Reno Events Center in Reno, Nevada.
 
"It was two great teams who really battled it out in a great basketball game," said Eastern head coach Jim Hayford of the game between the league's top offense and top defense. "I just feel really bad for our players.
 
Although Eastern finished 1-1 in the tournament after going 3-0 a year ago in Missoula, the 17-15 Eagles hope to receive a postseason invitational berth. Idaho, which fell to the Eagles in last year's quarterfinal round, advances to the semifinals to play 20-10 Montana at 8:05 p.m. Pacific time on Friday (March 11).
 
Despite two-time All-Big Sky Conference player Venky Jois finishing with the 39th double-double of his career, Eastern lost in the rubber game against the Vandals this season. Eastern won at home (74-60 on Jan. 9) and lost on the road (66-62 on Feb. 27).
 
But the Eagles were held to a season-low 35.6 percent shooting night, including just 9-of-32 3-pointers for 28 percent. The game included six ties and six lead changes, identical to the meeting in Moscow. In that previous meeting, Idaho held EWU to 43 percent shooting from the field and 31 percent from the 3-point arc.
 
"The story tonight is Idaho," Hayford added. "They were a little better than us tonight."
 
 
 
Won-Lost Records . . .  
 
* The Eagles are now 17-15 overall, having opened the tournament Tuesday (March 8) with a 74-52 win against 11th-seeded Northern Arizona. The Eagles and head coach Jim Hayford have already won the most games in back-to-back seasons in the school's 33 seasons as a member of NCAA Division I. Eastern has won 43 thus far (26 last year, 17 this season), to overtake the previous mark of 35.
 
* Idaho improve to 21-11.
 
 
 
What It Means . . .
 
* Idaho (21-11) advances to the semifinals of the Big Sky Conference Tournament where it will play 20-10 Montana at 8:05 p.m. on Friday (March 10). The other semifinal will be at 5:35 p.m. and feature top-seeded Weber State (24-8) against No. 5 North Dakota (17-14). Also winning in quarterfinal games on Thursday were #1 Weber State (78-74 over # 8 Portland State), #5 North Dakota (83-49 over #4 Idaho State) and #2 Montana (70-53 over #10 Sacramento State). Following the semifinal round, the championship game is slated for Saturday at 5:45 p.m. and will be televised on ESPNU and via www.watchespn.com.
 
 
 
What's Next . . .
 
* Once the NCAA Tournament pairings are announced on Sunday (March 13) from 2:30-4:30 p.m. Pacific time, other postseason invitational tournaments will begin to secure remaining teams for their events. Eastern has participated in the NCAA Tournament in 2004 and 2015, and the NIT in 2003.
 
 
 
Keys to Game . . .
 
* Eastern's Austin McBroom, the Big Sky's top scorer and 3-pointer shooter, finished 0-of-10 from the field and 0-of-6 from the free throw line. A second team All-Big Sky pick, McBroom entered the game ranked 16th in NCAA Division I in scoring (21.3) and third in 3-pointers per game (3.6). His 108 3-pointers this season are the fourth-most in league history and third most in school history.
 
 
 
Top Performers . . .
 
* Senior two-time All-Big Sky first team recipient Venky Jois made 6-of-11 shots to finish with 17 points, 12 rebounds and a pair of blocked shots. He went into the game ranked second in NCAA Division I with a .688 shooting percentage and had made 59 of his last 80 shots (74 percent) in the last eight games. He now has 39 career double-doubles, 13 this season and 12 in his last 21 games.
 
* Junior Felix Von Hofe made 4-of-12 3-pointers and finished with 17 points and six rebounds. He entered the game ranked 23rd nationally with an average of 3.03 3-pointers per game.
 
* In his 128th game as a collegian, senior graduate transfer Austin McBroom finished with 12 points on 12-of-14 shooting from the free throw line. Earlier this week, he was selected as an All-Big Sky Conference second team choice. He went into the game ranked third in NCAA Division I in 3-pointers per game (3.60) and 16th in scoring (21.3).
 
* Sophomore Bogdan Bliznyuk finished with 11 points, seven rebounds and four assists.
 
 
 
Turning Point . . .
 
* Trailing by a single point at 66-65 with 5 1/2 minutes to play, Eastern missed its next five shots and Idaho turned it into a 73-67 advantage with 3:10 left. The first three points in that stretch were scored by Idaho's Pat Ingram, who finished the game with 12 points after entering with a 3.5 average. The closest Eastern could get the rest of the way was three, as Idaho closed out the game by  making 4-of-6 free throws in the last 1:04.
 
 
 
Key Stats . . .
 
* In a matchup between the Big Sky's top offense against the top defense, the Eagles sank a season-low 35.6 percent, including only 9-of-32 3-pointers for 28 percent. Eastern entered the game ranked 14th in scoring (82.2), sixth in field goal accuracy (49.4 percent), seventh in 3-pointers per game (10.3) and 28th in 3-point accuracy (38.6 percent) – leading the Big Sky Conference in all of those categories. Idaho entered the game leading the Big Sky in scoring defense (65.5 per game) and overall field goal percentage defense (.410), and ranked third in 3-point percentage defense (.329).
 
 
 
Team Highlights . . .
 
* Eastern made 14-of-18 free throws in the first half to overcome a sluggish 10-of-27 shooting half, which matched its 10-of-27 start in EWU's win over Northern Arizona in the first round. Eastern used a 7-0 run to open early 16-14 and 18-16 leads, but Idaho overcame that by out-scoring EWU 19-7 in a 4 1/2 minute stretch to open a 10-point advantage. But the Eagles trailed just 41-37 at halftime as they allowed Idaho to make just three of its last eight shot attempts after a 12-of-21 start. There were six lead changes and five ties in the early going.
 
* After making just 13 of its first 39 field goal attempts and 4-of-21 3-pointers, the Eagles had a hot stretch to knot the game at 62 on back-to-back 3-pointers by Julian Harrell. Eastern pulled to within 66-65 shortly after that. Eastern made 6-of-8 shots in that stretch, including all three of its 3-point attempts.
 
 
 
Notables . . .
 
* Eastern is now 14-0 this season when it has a better field goal percentage than its opponent, and 3-15 when it has be out-shot.
 
* With 329 3-pointers made this season, the Eagles are chasing the school record of 344 set in 2015
 
* 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, now has 1,797 points to rank 13th in Big Sky history, 13 from moving into the No. 12 position (1,810). Besides his scoring prowess, Jois' school-record total of 239 blocked shots are eight from the league record of 247 (Brian Qvale, Montana, 2008-11). Jois also has 1,012 rebounds in his career to rank third in school history and fifth all-time in the Big Sky. Jois owns seven school records after breaking the school's career scoring record against Idaho State on March 3. With 60 dunks to break his own school record of 53 set as a junior, Jois is currently on pace to finish 19th in Big Sky history and fifth in school history in career field goal percentage (58.4 percent). His accuracy as a senior of 68.3 percent is on pace to set a school record (Ron Cox, 66.0 percent in 1977) and rank as the third-best in league history.
 
* With 108 3-pointers this season, senior graduate transfer Austin McBroom now ranks fourth among the seven performances in Big Sky Conference history with at least 100. Three of those previous six performances are by Eagles (Shannon Taylor 103 in 1999, Tyler Harvey 109 in 2014 and Harvey a Big Sky-record 128 in 2015). He needs one trey to equal Harvey's total to rank third and 16 to move into second (124, Stephen Sir, Northern Arizona, 2007). McBroom has a 21.0 scoring average to currently rank as the fifth-best in school history and his 651 total points are fifth. He is 26 points from Harvey's total of 677 in 2014 to rank fourth all-time.
 
* Eastern also played the Vandals in the tournament last year, winning in the quarterfinals 91-83 to complete a three-game season sweep. Eastern lost to the Vandals in the other tournament meeting, a 65-62 Idaho championship game win on a 3-pointer at the buzzer on March 9, 1990.
 
* Eastern is 1-2 versus Idaho in the Big Sky Conference Tournament, with a 25-year gap between the first two games. Eastern beat Idaho in the quarterfinals in Missoula in 2015, as the No. 2 Eagles beat the seventh-seeded Vandals 91-83. The previous meeting came in the 1990 championship game in Boise, Idaho, when top-seeded Idaho beat No. 2 EWU 65-62 on a shot at the buzzer by Ricardo Boyd.
 
* Eastern caught fire and won three games in last year's tournament in Missoula, beating Idaho and Sacramento State by identical 91-83 scores, then came from behind to upset host Montana 69-65. That earned EWU its second appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
 
 
 
More Comments from Head Coach Jim Hayford . . .
 
On Shooting: "We feel like we are a lot better shooting team than we showed, but I feel like we need to credit the other's team defense. We're a pretty good offensive team, but they held us to 36 percent from the field and 28 percent from three. They did a great job of mixing up defenses on us and dared us to make the outside shot. But they also get in that space where they contest it, and then they take away your high percentage inside looks. They did it to us in Moscow and they did it to us again tonight. So you need to credit the team that won."
 
On Idaho's Seven Turnovers: "Normally they play with a really high turnover percentage, and tonight they only had seven turnovers. They took an area of weakness and turned it into an area of strength. It wasn't because of a lack of effort on our part – we were denying them and picking them up full-court. They took good care of the basketball."