A new winning streak has begun for the Eastern Washington University men's basketball team.
 
The sixth-seeded and defending champion Eagles used a late run in the first half to take the lead for good and went on to defeat 11th seeded Northern Arizona 74-52 in a Big Sky Conference Tournament game Tuesday (March 8) at the Reno Events Center in Reno, Nevada.
 
"Any win in the postseason is a good win," said Eastern head coach Jim Hayford, whose team snapped a four-game losing streak that included three losses by four points or less. "During this four-game losing streak, we were kind of like a snake coiling into perfect form ready to strike this week."
 
Eastern, now 17-14, advances to play 20-11 Idaho in the quarterfinals on Thursday (March 8) at 8:05 p.m. Pacific time. With All-Big Sky Conference players Austin McBroom and Venky Jois leading the way, Eastern won its fourth-straight game in the league tournament and third in three tries this season against the Lumberjacks.
 
McBroom, a second-team all-league choice, had 16 points, a career-high five steals, and moved into fourth in Big Sky Conference history with 106 3-pointers this season. Jois finished with his 38th career double-double, and in the process went over the 1,000-rebound mark in his career. He finished with 14 points, 11 rebounds, six assists, two steals and a blocked shot.
 
The 52 points EWU allowed was its best defensive effort of the season, and Northern Arizona's 40.4 shooting percentage was the lowest against the Eagles since Idaho made only 31.3 percent on Jan. 9 in a 74-60 Eagle win.
 
"In some ways our team can be a fragile team," explained Hayford. "Sometimes we get our energy from scoring, and that makes us play harder on defense. We got a little re-adjusted tonight – we didn't make shots like we can, but we fed off our defense. Then our offense came into form and we shot the ball like we could. And we didn't go down in our defense. That's how we came away with a win."
 
One of the losses for the Eagles during its four-game losing streak was a 66-62 loss to the Vandals. Prior to that, Eastern had a seven-game winning streak.
 
 
 
Won-Lost Records . . .  
 
* The Eagles are now 17-14 overall and won for the first time since beating Sacramento State on the road 93-88 on Feb. 18. Eastern, which was in sole possession of third place in the conference after the win over the Hornets, finished 10-8 in league play.
 
* The Lumberjacks, who played without its top player, Kris Yanku, finished its season 5-25. Northern Arizona was just 3-15 in the Big Sky, but two of those wins came since Feb. 6 against Idaho and Idaho State, a pair of teams who defeated Eastern in back-to-back games on Feb. 27 and March 3, respectively. Yanku did not play in NAU's finale because of conduct detrimental to the team. He averaged a team-leading 14.7 points and 4.8 assists per game, and was the team's second-leading rebounder at 5.4 per game.
 
 
 
What It Means . . .
 
* Eastern (17-14) advances to the quarterfinals of the Big Sky Conference Tournament where it will play third seeded Idaho (20-11) at 8:05 p.m. Also winning in Tuesday's opening round was #8 Portland State (74-67 over #9 Northern Colorado), #5 North Dakota (85-80 over #12 Southern Utah) and #10 Sacramento State (79-75 over #7 Montana State). The other quarterfinal games on Thursday will be #8 PSU (13-17) versus #1 Weber State (23-8) at 12:05 p.m., #5 North Dakota (16-14) versus #4 Idaho State (16-14) at 2:35 p.m. and #10 Sacramento State (14-16) versus #2 Montana (19-10) at 5:35 p.m. Eastern games may be heard on 700-AM ESPN and via the web at www.700espn.com. All tourney games until the championship game will also be broadcast on www.watchbigsky.com.
 
 
 
What's Next . . .
 
* Following the quarterfinal round, the semifinals take place on Friday (March 9) and will include games at 5:35 p.m. (first two quarterfinal winners) and 8:05 p.m. (second two quarterfinal winners). The championship game is slated for Saturday at 5:45 p.m. and will be televised on ESPNU and via www.watchespn.com.
 
 
 
Keys to Game . . .
 
* Eastern forced 19 turnovers against Weber State in its regular season finale, and forced 17 versus the Lumberjacks. That led to 24 points off turnovers for the Eagles, just one behind the season high of 25 set on two occasions.
 
 
 
Top Performers . . .
 
* In his 127th game as a collegian, senior graduate transfer Austin McBroom finished with 16 points and five steals, making 7-of-14 shots overall and 2-of-7 3-pointers. 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 (3.61) and 17th in scoring (21.2).
 
* Senior two-time All-Big Sky first team recipient Venky Jois made 5-of-10 shots to finish with 14 points, 11 rebounds, six assists (one from his career high), two steals and a blocked shot. He went into the game ranked second in NCAA Division I with a .695 shooting percentage and had made 54 of his last 70 shots (77 percent) in the last seven games. He now has 38 career double-doubles, 12 this season and 10 in his last 19 games.
 
* Sophomore Bogdan Bliznyuk scored 15 points and had five boards.
 
* Junior Felix Von Hofe chipped in six points with a pair of 3-pointers made, and also had five rebounds and a career-high four assists. He entered the game ranked 22nd nationally with an average of 3.07 3-pointers per game.
 
 
 
Turning Point . . .
 
* Eastern trailed 26-23, but went on a 9-0 run to take a 32-26 advantage just before halftime. Eastern held NAU without a point for a 3:10 stretch, then continued its defensive effort in the second half, holding NAU to 3-of-8 shooting with a trio of turnovers as the Eagles opened a 50-36 lead with 12:57 left in the game. Eastern led by as many as 29 the rest of the way.
 
 
 
Key Stats . . .
 
* Eastern made just 3-of-18 3-point shots in the first half and was 10-of-32 for the game, but was impressive inside the arc. Eastern made 19-of-33 of its 2-point attempts and 6-of-8 free throws in the game. Eastern finished at 45 percent versus the Lumberjacks after entering the game ranked fifth in NCAA Division I with an accuracy rate of 49.5 percent,
 
 
 
Team Highlights . . .
 
* Despite a 3-of-18 3-point shooting half, the Eagles led at intermission 36-29. Northern Arizona made one of its last 10 shots following a 10-of-16 start. Austin McBroom scored 11 points and had a pair of steals in the first half, and Venky Jois had seven points, seven rebounds and three assists in the first 20 minutes.
 
 
 
Notables . . .
 
* Eastern is now 3-1 versus Northern Arizona in the Big Sky Conference Tournament, winning the last three meetings. The last time the Eagles and Lumberjacks met was in the 2004 championship game in Cheney, won by the Eagles 71-59 to advance to the school's first-ever NCAA Tournament. Eastern made its second NCAA appearance when it won the tourney title in 2015. Eastern beat NAU 58-53 in the semifinals in 2001 in Northridge, Calif., and fell 82-65 in 2000 in the semifinals in Missoula after EWU won the Big Sky regular season co-championship.
 
* Eastern is making its 14th Big Sky Conference Tournament appearance in 29 years as a member of the league, with a record of 12-11 in its 22 games. Before winning the 2015 title, Eastern hadn't appeared since the 2011-12 and 2010-11 seasons, which were EWU's first since 2006. The Eagles qualified for each tournament from 1998-2006.
 
* Eastern trails in the all-time series 30-36 (9-22 in Flagstaff, 19-12 in Cheney, 2-2 neutral). The only meeting before Eastern became a member of NCAA Division I was an 84-80 NAU victory on Dec. 20, 1969, in Fresno, Calif. A year ago, Eastern lost 73-59 in Flagstaff in the lone meeting between to two schools. Eastern has, however, won the last five meetings in Cheney dating back to a 73-69 loss on Jan. 15, 2010.
 
* 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 1,782 points to rank 13th in Big Sky history, 28 from moving into the No. 12 position (1,810). Besides his scoring prowess, Jois' school-record total of 237 blocked shots are 10 from the league record of 247 (Brian Qvale, Montana, 2008-11). Jois also has 1,000 rebounds in his career to rank third in school history and sixth all-time in the Big Sky (11 from fifth). Jois owns seven school records after breaking the school's career scoring record against Idaho State on March 3. With 58 dunks to break his own school record of 53 set as a junior, Jois is currently on pace to finish 16th in Big Sky history and fifth in school history in career field goal percentage (58.5 percent entering the game). His accuracy as a senior of 69.5 percent (entering the game) 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 (Stephen Sir, Northern Arizona, 2007). McBroom has a 21.5 scoring average to currently rank as the fifth-best in school history and his 623 total points are sixth. He needs three points to move into fifth with David Peed (626 in 1989) and is 54 points from Harvey's total of 677 in 2014 to rank fourth all-time.
 
* Eastern is now 14-0 this season when it has a better field goal percentage than its opponent, and 3-14 when it has been out-shot. The Eagles are also 9-2 when allowing 71 points or fewer and 8-1 when their opponent makes 44.9 percent or less from the field, and are 1-8 when EWU scores 71 or fewer. Against Sacramento State on Feb. 18, the Eagles won for the ninth-straight time when they made at least 50 percent of their shots, finishing 31-of-58 for 53 percent with 11 3-pointers, but that streak ended the next game versus Portland State when EWU was out-shot 65 percent to 50 percent. The Eagles, ranked fifth in NCAA Division I with an accuracy rate of 49.5 percent, are now 12-3 when making at least 50 percent, and have had hit that mark in five-straight games before making only 43 percent versus Idaho on Feb. 27. Eastern followed that by making 44 percent against Idaho State, 47 percent against Weber State to end the regular season and XX percent against NAU.
 
 
 
 
 
More Comments from Head Coach Jim Hayford . . .
 
On Winning as Sixth Seed: "As I looked at this bracket, I thought fifth or sixth was a chance to come here and kind of get the jitters out of the way. We could get a practice in on the floor, a game and get a day of rest. But I was told we have to have it for four games in five days, but with the parity in the Big Sky I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking about the next game. We got here a couple of days early and it worked out great."
 
On Idaho Game Thursday: "There's no secrets between Eastern and Idaho. We're in the same media market and we're the closest schools geographically in the league. We know each other. And we're travel partners, so when we're watching tape we're seeing Idaho against every other Big Sky school. It's developing into a great rivalry. Historically, Eastern didn't hold up its end. But we've won four of the last five, and now we meet in the Big Sky Conference Tournament two years in a row. It's good for the conference, it's good for Eastern and it's good for Idaho. I hope it develops into something special and I anticipate it being a great game."