With senior Venky Jois on the bench, Bogdan Bliznyuk was up to the task.
 
The junior guard/forward scored 23 of his game-high 25 points in the second half as the Eagles opened play in the College Basketball Invitational with a 79-72 victory over Pepperdine Wednesday (March 16) at Reese Court in Cheney, Wash.
 
The Eagles scored 50 second-half points to surge past the Waves, and, coupled with Nevada's come-from-behind 79-75 victory over Montana, the Eagles will return to Reno, Nevada, to play the Nevada Wolf Pack on Monday (March 21) at 7:05 p.m. Pacific time. Had the Eagles won, they would have hosted the Grizzlies.
 
It was Eastern first victory in a national tournament as a member of NCAA Division I in four tries, and was the first overall since the 1940's when the Eagles advanced to five NAIA Championships (then known as NAIB).
 
"We got out of this with a postseason win – the first in Eastern history," said Eastern head coach Jim Hayford. "We're really excited about it. I'm very happy for our players because we were having fun with each other."
 
The victory was especially sweet for Hayford, who coached in his 500th game as a collegiate head coach against the Waves. He is now 338-162 in 17 seasons, including 37-27 at Sioux Falls (two seasons from 1999-2001), 217-57 at nearby Whitworth (10 seasons from 2001-2011) and 84-78 at EWU (five seasons from 2011-16).
 
The victory also extended the season of Eastern's all-time leading scorer, Venky Jois, who played only 12 minutes in the first half because of a sore knee. Jois scored six points and went over the 1,800-point mark in his career.
 
Senior graduate transfer Austin McBroom added 24 points, four assists and five rebounds for the Eagles, and junior Felix Von Hofe added 14 points and nine rebounds. McBroom now has 114 3-pointers this season to rank third in Big Sky history and second in school history. Von Hofe has 99 to rank 11th all-time in the league and fifth in EWU history, and is trying to record the 10th performance in league history with at least 100. Eastern players own four of those marks.
 
 
 
Won-Lost Records . . .  
 
* Eastern is 18-15 after going 1-1 in the recently-concluded Big Sky Conference Tournament. Eastern has had its most victories (44) in back-to-back seasons in EWU's 33 seasons as a member of NCAA Division I.
 
* The Waves are 18-14 after finishing 10-8 and in fourth place in the West Coast Conference.
 
 
 
What It Means . . .
 
* Eastern advances to the quarterfinals of the 16-team tournament and will play at Nevada on Monday, March 21. Nevada is 20-13, including a 2-0 mark against Big Sky Conference foes (Portland State, Montana State). Eastern just played in Reno in the Big Sky Conference Tournament, but that took place at the Reno Events Center. Monday's game will be played in the Lawlor Events Center on the Nevada campus.
 
 
 
What's Next . . .
 
* The CBI is a single-elimination tournament up until the "best-of-three" Championship Series, with all games played at campus sites. After the first found games, the quarterfinal round will take place on Monday, March 21, followed by the semifinal round on Wednesday, March 23. Prior to the semifinals, the remaining teams will be re-bracketed. The Championship Series is a best-of-three in which one team will host two of the three games. Those games will be played on March 28, March 30, and April 1.
 
 
 
Keys to Game . . .
 
* Eastern utilized a zone defense much of the game, and held the Waves to 41.5 percent shooting from the field. Eastern also out-rebounded Pepperdine 45-39, with the Eagles grabbing 14 offensive rebounds and turning them into 13 points.
 
 
 
Top Performers . . .
 
* Sophomore Bogdan Bliznyuk made 8-of-16 shots with a trio of 3-pointers and finished with a double-double with 25 points and 11 rebounds, and also had four assists, two blocked shots and a pair of steals. Eastern won for the eighth-straight time when Bliznyuk has had a double-double, including seven this season.
 
* In his 129th game as a collegian, senior graduate transfer Austin McBroom finished with 24 points, five rebounds and four assists. He was selected as an All-Big Sky Conference second team choice. He went into the game ranked fifth in NCAA Division I in 3-pointers per game (3.48) and 18th in scoring (21.0).
 
* Junior Felix Von Hofe added 14 points on 4-of-8 shooting from the 3-point stripe, and also had a career-high nine rebounds. He entered the game ranked 24th nationally with an average of 3.06 3-pointers per game.
 
 
 
Turning Point . . .
 
* Trailing at halftime 34-29, the Eagles caught fire in the second half and opened a 12-point lead with 8:01 left at 64-52. Although Eastern's shooting came alive in the second half, it was only the fourth time in 19 games this season Eastern has won when it's been out-shot by an opponent. Pepperdine made 42 percent from the field compared to 38 percent for the Eagles.
 
 
 
Key Stats . . .
 
* After making just 28.1 percent of their shots in the first half, Eastern made 47 percent in the second half. The Eagles sank 8-of-13 3-pointers after intermission after a 6-of-19 performance in the first half. Eastern's 14 3-pointers in the game were two away from the CBI single game record.
 
 
 
Team Highlights . . .
 
* Eastern led by as many as 10 points in the early going and took a 26-19 lead thanks to early 7-of-15 shooting from the field, with six 3-pointers. On the defensive end, Eastern held Pepperdine to 5-of-14 shooting in the early going, including blocks on three straight shots. However, Eastern made two of its next 17 shots, while the Waves made nine of its last 19 shots to lead at halftime 34-29.
 
 
 
Notables . . .
 
* With 343 3-pointers made this season, the Eagles are one behind the school record of 344 set in 2015
 
* Two-time first team All-Big Sky selection Venky Jois, who is just the third player in Big Sky Conference history to score more than 1,600 points and haul down at least 900 rebounds, now has a school-record 1,803 points. He needs just seven to move into 12^th in Big Sky Conference history. His 1,015 rebounds are now fifth in league history, and his 240 blocks are just behind the league record of 247. He has already set seven school records, and is on pace for another for field goal percentage in a season (68.3 percent entering the game).
 
* Eastern has also participated in the NCAA Tournament in 2004 and 2015, and the NIT in 2003. In 2003, Eastern fell to Wyoming 78-71 in the first round of the NIT in 2003, then lost 75-56 to Oklahoma State in the NCAA Tournament in Kansas City, Mo., a year later. Last season, after winning the Big Sky Conference Tournament title in Missoula, Eastern fell to 22nd-ranked Georgetown 84-74.
 
* This is the eighth national post-season tournament Jim Hayford has coached in. Besides last year's NCAA Tournament, he coached Whitworth in six NCAA Division III Tournaments (2003, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011). He now is 7-7 in national tourney games, including an Elite Eight appearance in his final season at Whitworth in 2011.
 
* Eastern has played Pepperdine only once previously in school history, that coming nearly 70 years ago to the day on March 14, 1946. That was a 46-42 Eastern loss in the NAIA Championships (then known as NAIB), an event Eastern played in on five occasions (1942, 1943, 1945, 1946 and 1947).
 
* Eastern was 3-0 versus the West Coast Conference this season, having also defeated USF for the second-straight season (81-77 on Dec. 1) and Pacific (70-63 on Nov. 28 in Sacramento). Pepperdine was 4-1 versus those same teams, beating Pacific 81-76 at home and 65-63 in overtime on the road, and beating USF on the road 98-84 and losing to the Dons at home 82-72. The Waves beat USF 90-86 in the WCC Tournament in Las Vegas before falling to Saint Mary's 81-66 in the semifinals. Pepperdine beat Montana 69-63 on Nov. 29 in Malibu, and Eastern fell to the Grizzlies 74-69 in Missoula.
 
* Eastern is now 14-0 this season when it has a better field goal percentage than its opponent, and 4-15 when it has be out-shot.
 
* With 114 3-pointers this season, senior graduate transfer Austin McBroom now ranks third 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 only 10 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 675 total points are fifth. He is two points from Harvey's total of 677 in 2014 to rank fourth all-time.
 
* Past CBI champions include Tulsa, Oregon State, VCU, Oregon, Pittsburgh, Santa Clara, Siena, and Loyola Chicago. Teams from nearly every conference have participated in the event. Twenty-six teams have used the CBI to springboard to the NCAA Tournament the following year, while another 16 have gone on to the NIT. ESPN is the official television home of the CBI. ESPNU will televise each game of the best-of-three Championship Series. Mitch Holthus and Sean Harrington will serve as the broadcast team. The College Basketball Invitational is produced by the Gazelle Group of Princeton, N.J. The Gazelle Group is a sports marketing firm, specializing in event production and management, client representation, and sponsorship consulting. Gazelle produces numerous nationally-recognized events, such as the 2K Classic benefiting Wounded Warrior Project, Legends Classic, and the Gotham Classic. 
 
 

More Comments from Head Coach Jim Hayford . . .
 
"I really appreciate the way the crowd got behind the team and go into the game. It was a really fun home court environment and our team really was having fun tonight. We told Bogdan at halftime that knowing Venky was probably not going to play, we weren't going to win without a great half from him. Then he goes out and has a 23-point second half. Austin was just consistent the whole night through. They had no idea they were coming to Cheney that we were going to play zone defense. Our zone worked great and caught them by surprise. We made sure where Lamond (Murray) was a little better in the second half than we did the first half."
 
 
 
Eastern Washington Player Bogdan Bliznyuk . . .
 
"I just had to step up. I felt like I was playing aggressive in the first half, but I was missing a couple of shots – easy shots. I knew I was going to get the same looks, and that my teammates and coaches were behind me. I just had to step up. I had to keep being confident and know the game would come to me."
 
 
 
Eastern Washington Player Austin McBroom . . .
 
 "His knee has been bothering him at the end of the season, and he said at halftime he couldn't really move. When we were down and not doing too well, but it was especially a big win for me. Pepperdine is about five minutes from my mother's house, so it's good to beat a team close to home."