The first 20 minutes were a thing of beauty, like a Ferrari.
 
Thanks in part to 21 points apiece by Bogdan Bliznyuk and Jacob Wiley, the Eastern Washington University men's basketball team continue to be a part of the logjam at the top of the Big Sky Conference standings by beating Southern Utah 83-68 Saturday (Jan. 21) at Reese Court in Cheney, Wash.
 
Eight Eagles scored and four had 3-pointers as the Eagles were dominating in the first 20 minutes of the game and opened a 47-22 lead at halftime. Eastern led by as many as 30 points in the second half before settling for the 15-point victory.
 
"When we are clicking on all cylinders our team looks pretty good," said Eastern head coach Jim Hayford. "The 22 points we gave up in the first half shows what we can do defensively. We were shooting well from outside and the drive game was going. But the second 20 minutes showed why we have to keep working hard at practice every day."
 
Eastern had a 52 percent shooting night and held Southern Utah to 36 percent while blocking 10 Thunderbird shots. In the first half alone, Eastern's defense held the Thunderbirds to 24 percent shooting and a 6:35 stretch without a field goal. The 22 points SUU scored equaled the second-fewest EWU has allowed in a half this season, while Eastern's 47 points equaled the sixth-most in a half.
 
Bliznyuk and Wiley stuffed the stat sheet, with Bliznyuk finishing with 21 points, nine rebounds and equaling a career high with five steals. Wiley also had nine rebounds to go along with five assists, four blocks and a steal.
 
 
Won-Lost Records . . .  
 
* The Eagles are now 13-7 in their 34th season as a member of NCAA Division I and 5-2 in the league as they continue their 30th season as a member of the Big Sky.  Eastern entered the game with a league-best RPI of 160, and is now 10-1 at home and 3-6 on the road.
* Southern Utah, which fell to Idaho 79-67 on Thursday in Moscow, dropped to 4-16 overall and 2-5 in the league.
 
 
What It Means . . .
 
* At 5-2, the Eagles remain in the thick of the race for the lead in the Big Sky Conference, with five teams entering action Saturday within a half-game of each other for the lead. North Dakota beat Idaho State 89-64 at home on Saturday to improve to 6-2. In other games later Saturday, Weber State (4-1) is at Northern Colorado, Montana (5-2) is at Sacramento State and Portland State (4-2) hosts Montana State. The top five teams secure first-round byes in the Big Sky Conference Tournament March 7-11 to Reno, Nevada. There are still 12 games left to play for the Eagles in the league season as the NAU game marked the one-third point in the season for the Eagles.
 
 
What's Next . . .
 
* Eastern plays rematches on the road against Montana (Jan. 26) and Montana State (Jan. 28) next week. Eastern beat the Bobcats 82-64 in Cheney on Jan. 5, then two days later suffered its first and only loss at Reese Court by a 65-59 score versus the Grizzlies.
 
Keys to Game . . .
 
* Eastern got off to a quick start with leads of 14-4 and 29-9 in the opening 12 minutes, which enabled the Eagles to substitute liberally. Nine Eagles played in the first half, with eight of them scoring. Eastern sank 8-of-16 shots from the 3-point stripe in the first half and finished 10-of-20 from the arc in the game.
 
 
Top Performers . . .
 
* Senior graduate transfer Jacob Wiley had his sixth game in his last seven outings with at least 21 points. For the season, he has scored at least 20 eight times and in double figures in all but two of EWU's 20 games. He made only 7-of-15 shots from the field, but did sink 7-of-8 free throws and added eight rebounds, five assists and four blocked shots. He entered the game ranked seventh in NCAA Division I in blocked shots (2.9), seventh nationally in field goal percentage (.641) and 56th in free throw percentage (.857).
* Junior Bogdan Bliznyuk made 8-of-15 shots from the field and 5-of-9 free throws, and also had a team-high nine rebounds with a career-high five steals, two assists and two blocked shots.  He entered the game ranked 82nd nationally in scoring (18.0) and 59th in free throw percentage (.855).
* Senior Felix Von Hofe hit 4-of-8 3-point attempts to finish with 12 points. He entered the game ranked 30th in NCAA Division I with an average of 3.05 3-pointers per game. He remains 14th in career 3-pointers in the Big Sky with a current total of 228, which is 32 from the school record of 260 set by his former Eastern teammate Tyler Harvey from 2013-15.
* True freshman Luka Vulikic had six points and five rebounds, and equaled his career high with three assists.
* True freshman Mason Peatling chipped in seven points, seven rebounds, three assists and two blocked shots.
* Sophomores Cody Benzel and Tyl Gibson both hit a pair of 3-pointers and scored six points.
 
 
Turning Point . . .
 
* Eastern sank five of its first shots to take a 14-4 lead, then led 29-9 with 8:01 left in the first half on a 3-pointer by Ty Gibson. A 13-2 run for the Eagles included a 6:35 stretch without allowing a Thunderbird field goal. Eastern led by as many as 25 in the first half, and out-shot SUU 58-24 percent. Eastern sank 8-of-16 3-pointers in the first half alone, and led at intermission 47-19.
 
 
Key Stats . . .
 
* Southern Utah's Randy Onwuasor scored 23 points, but made only 9-of-21 shots from the field and missed all four of his 3-point attempts. He also had seven rebounds, three assists and three steals. A Texas Tech transfer, he had entered Saturday's game averaging 23.3 points (first in the Big Sky), 6.9 rebounds (eighth), 3.2 assists (12th) and 1.2 steals per game (13th). He scored two more points than Eastern's Jacob Wiley as that duo entered the game ranked one-two in scoring in league games only. Onwuasor has now scored 180 points (25.7 average) and Wiley is right behind with 172 (24.6). Onwuasor entered the game ranked fourth in NCAA Division I in scoring and sixth in both free throws made (121) and attempted (148), and averaged 4.2 points as a sophomore at Texas Tech and 2.9 as a freshman.
 
 
Team Highlights . . .
 
* In holding Southern Utah to 24 percent shooting in the first half and 36 percent in the game, Eastern continued its outstanding defense in league play. After the first third of the Big Sky Conference schedule, Eastern entered the SUU game with the Big Sky's best defensive shooting percentage overall (.413) and first in scoring defense (68.0). Eastern is also second defensively from 3-point stripe (.339, with Southern Utah leading at .336). The defense for the Eagles includes the top five performances this season versus NCAA Division I foes of 62, 64, 65, 62 and 68 points allowed in games versus Idaho, MSU, Montana, Northern Arizona and Southern Utah, respectively. For the season, EWU leads the league in blocked shots (5.2 per game to rank 38th in the nation). Eastern had entered league play ranked ninth among 12 teams in scoring defense (78.6), eighth in field goal percentage defense (.455) and ninth in 3-point percentage defense (.377), and have since improved that to sixth (75.3), fourth (.443) and sixth (.366).
 
 
Notables . . .
 
* The Eagles remain the top team in the Big Sky Conference with an RPI of 160 (EWU was a season high 57th on 12/13 in the official NCAA RPI ratings). The next-best Big Sky teams are Weber State (#170), Montana (#179), North Dakota (#211) and Portland State (#218). Southern Utah is No. 338 out of 351 NCAA Division I schools. With an 8-5 mark entering Big Sky play, Eastern joined Portland State at 7-4 as the only other league team above the .500 mark prior to the start of the league season. Plus, the Eagles received 10 votes in the Collegeinsider.com Mid-Major top 25 on Dec. 12 when the Eagles were 7-2.
 
 
More Comments from Head Coach Jim Hayford . . .
 
On Defense: "We're a pretty good shot blocking team and we blocked 10 tonight. When our rotations are right we're really good. That's why we are the league's top field goal percentage defensive team, which is a huge change from the last couple of years. I'm really proud of the guys for buying into that. We're not just playing one-on-one defense, but we're playing really good team defense and it's getting better every week."
 
On First Half Defense Being the Best of the Season: "It was close. We played some pretty good defense the first half at Weber State. We played some really good defense the first 10 minutes at Colorado. I'm looking for the 40-minute answer, not the 10 or 20 minute one."
 
On Defense on Onwuasor: "We did a pretty good job on him – he's a good player. He didn't make a three, we held him under 50 percent from the field and forced him into three turnovers. He had to earn all 22 of his points."
 
On Jacob Wiley: "If a player has been averaging 30 points the last three games, you're probably going to give it to him early and see what he has. Plus we can see how they are going to play off of him, and we did a great job of exploiting their double-team. Our players are really figuring out our spacing and cuts and how that opens up other things."
 
On SUU Comeback: "We played as good a 20 minutes as we have all season in the first half. Credit Southern Utah and their coaching staff, their team came out and played really hard the last 20 minutes and our intensity dipped. That shows good coaching and good character by their players to come back after being down like that at halftime and come back and play as hard as they did in the second half."
 
On Maintaining Lead: "We're only guaranteed 31 games a year. So regardless of the score, you've put in a whole lot of work into this for 365 days a year in all 12 months. You want to make the most of those minutes while you're in your uniform. I think that's what we have to keep getting back to. And we have to focus on getting better every time we're on the court, whether it's a practice, a game, first half or second half."
 
 
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