Balance is a beautiful thing.
 
Five Eastern Washington University players scored in double figures – including four sophomores or freshmen – as the Eagles beat Idaho 89-75 in a Big Sky Conference men's basketball game on Thursday (Feb. 4) at Memorial Gym in Moscow, Idaho.
 
A total of 10 Eagles scored, and eight different players combined for EWU's 11 3-pointers made. A 13-5 run – with all of them scored by freshmen or sophomores – helped open a 13-point lead for EWU in the second half. A quartet of players – three sophomores and a freshman – combined for 54 points and two of them had career highs.
 
"We can play multiple styles of basketball, and that's the best part about our team," said Eastern head coach Shantay Legans. "We have players who can step up and we have players who can defend – they do a lot of different things to help us win games. Everybody wants to do great for themselves, but everybody wants to come together and win. That is something our leaders on our team really push. As we keep moving forward these guys keep understanding what we need to do to win."
 
Sophomore Michael Meadows led the way with a career-high 17, and redshirt freshman Steele Venters had career highs with 10 points and eight rebounds. Sophomore Ellis Magnuson added 15 points and sophomore Jacob Groves scored 12. Junior Tanner Groves added a dozen to go along with six rebounds after entering the game as the reigning Big Sky Player of the Week and averages of 17.3 points and 9.3 rebounds per game.
 
 "Tanner is a force, and teams have to figure out how to stop him," said Legans. "He had 12 points and six rebounds, and I'll take that from him. But we have a lot of other great players on our team."
 
Now 7-6 overall and 6-2 in the Big Sky Conference, Eastern plays the Vandals again Saturday at 12:05 p.m. at Reese Court in Cheney, Wash. The Eagles have now won four-straight games.
 
Eastern senior Jacob Davison played in his 100th game on Thursday to join 24 other Eagles in school history to hit that mark, including his teammate Jack Perry (103). Davison had five points versus the Vandals, and has now scored 1,317 career points to rank 12th in school history, and is just two from reaching the 1,319 that Marc Axton had from 2002-05. Axton will be the analyst for the television broadcast on SWX on Saturday.
 
Idaho was looking for their first win of the season under former Eagle player Zac Claus, and exited the game 0-14 overall and 0-11 in the Big Sky. But Claus had a happy homecoming in his first game back at Reese Court as Idaho's head coach a year ago, with the Vandals winning 74-71. Eastern's furious comeback fell short as the Eagles trailed at halftime by 18 and by as many as 24 in the second half.
 
 
Records
 
* The Eagles, defending regular season champions, are 7-6 overall and 6-2 in the Big Sky Conference.  The preseason favorites to win the league title succeeded in garnering its first three-game winning streak of the season in sweeping Sacramento State last week at home (68-60 and 94-79). After a three-day delay to play the game because of a positive Covid-19 case within their program, the used an 18-1 run on Sunday and runs of 16-2 and 16-0 on Monday to register the sweep. For the weekend, Eastern was a plus 40 in points in the paint (82-42) and plus 50 in points off the bench (73-23).
 
* Eastern is in a logjam in a league season impacted by numerous cancellations caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Entering Thursday's action, Montana State was on top at 6-0, followed by Southern Utah (6-2), Eastern (5-2), Weber State (4-2), Idaho State (5-3) and Sacramento State (4-4). Northern Colorado is at 5-6, followed by Northern Arizona (4-6), Montana (3-5), Portland State (2-4), and Idaho (0-9).
 
* Idaho is 0-14 overall and 0-11, falling 81-56 on Jan. 28 and then 81-62 on Jan. 30. A year ago, Eastern slipped past the Vandals in Moscow by a 78-75 score in a game that featured 10 ties and 10 lead changes. But Claus had a happy homecoming in his first game back at Reese Court as Idaho's head coach a year ago, with the Vandals winning 74-71. Eastern's furious comeback fell short as the Eagles trailed at halftime by 18 and by as many as 24 in the second half. That loss to the Vandals was just one of four the Eagles had during the league season. Eastern was 13-2 at Reese Court a year ago, but only lost to Montana and the Vandals.
 
 
Top EWU Performers
 
Sophomore Michael Meadows hit 7-of-10 shots to finish with 17 points, eclipsing his previous career high of 11.He also had three rebounds and a pair of assists.
Sophomore Ellis Magnuson, whose father played football at Idaho, scored a season-high 15 for EWU on 4-of-8 shooting from the field and 5-of-6 from the free throw line. He made a pair of 3-pointers and had four assists.
Junior Tanner Groves had 12 points and six rebounds, but played only 22 1/2 minutes because of foul trouble. He also had three blocked shots and a pair of assists.
Redshirt freshman Steele Venters hit 4-of-7 shots from the field with a pair of 3-pointers to finish with a career-high 10 points. He also had a career-high eight boards as he eclipsed his previous highs of nine points and three rebounds.
Sophomore Jacob Groves, the younger brother of junior Tanner Groves, scored 12 points with a pair of 3-pointers and had four rebounds. Both Groves brothers are graduates of Shadle Park High School in Spokane, Wash.
Senior Jacob Davison, the preseason MVP in the Big Sky Conference, played in his 100th game as an Eagle and scored five poins. He also had two assists and a steal.
Junior Kim Aiken Jr., a preseason All-Big Sky selection, had five points, four rebounds, two assists and two blocked shots for EWU.
Sophomore Tyler Robertson chipped in eight points and also contributed four rebounds and four assists.
 
 
Game Details & Turning Point
 
The Eagles scored the first five points in the half, and that helped them lead for the entire half. Eight different Eastern players scored in the half, and EWU led by as many as nine with 8:57 to play at 23-14.
 
Idaho hung tough, however, and a 3-point play by Robertson on a rebound basket helped EWU lead by four at intermission, 38-34. Meadows scored nine for EWU, including one of the six 3-pointers six different Eagles hit in the first half.
 
Both teams were 13-of-30 from the field in the first half for 43.3 percent, and were knotted in rebounds at 18 apiece. Eastern had two more 3-pointers and two more free throws, and Idaho had one more turnover.
 
It was much of the same in the second half as the Vandals forged an early 43-all tie, and two other ties after that. But EWU kept hold of the lead, and then used a 7-1 run to open a 67-56 lead with 8;09 left. Freshman Victor Radocaj came off the bench and quickly hit a basket, and then Venters scored the next eight to give EWU its biggest lead of the night.
 
Sophomore Casson Rouse then joined the party with a 3-pointer to give EWU a 73-60 advantage with 7:14 to play. At that point, 10 Eagles had scored and seven players had combined for EWU's 11 total 3-pointers. All of EWU's points in the 13-5 run were scored by freshmen or sophomores – Venters, Radocaj and Rouse.
 
Eastern led by no less than nine the rest of the way.
 
 
Series Notes
 
* Since 1996 when Idaho first left the Big Sky Conference, the two schools have now played 29 times, with Eastern winning 17 of them. Idaho leads the all-time series 58-32. Since EWU became a NCAA Division I member in the 1983-84 season, EWU is 20-37 against Idaho (10-16 home, 9-17 away, 1-4 neutral). In the 15 meetings since Idaho re-joined the Big Sky Conference in the 2014-15 season, EWU is 9-6, but the average winning margin is just 7.3 points (total of 110). Not including a 25-point Eagle win in 2019 and the 14-point victory, the average margin of the other 13 games is 5.5 points.
 
 
More Game Notes
 
* The Eagles are 7-6 overall and with a four-game winning streak are starting to get on the roll like they did a year ago en route to the regular season league title. Last year after five games of the league season, the Eagles were 3-2 (like this year's team), and had won the first game of what would become a six-game winning streak. Eastern ended the regular season with a streak of seven-straight victories to win the league title with a 16-4 mark.
 
* Zac Claus lettered for EWU in the 1996-97 and 1997-98 seasons after transferring from Nebraska, and is in his second season at the helm at UI.  Entering Thursday's game, 6-foot-8 senior forward Scott Blakney is averaging 11.6 points per game to lead Idaho, and 5-11 senior guard Damen Thacker averages 10.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.7 assists. Gabe Quinnett, a 6-4 sophomore guard, chips in 9.6 points and 2.1 assists. His father, Brian Quinnett, starred at Cheney High School and Washington State University before playing three seasons in the NBA for the New York Knicks and Dallas Mavericks.
 
 
On the Horizon
 
* The Eagles will turn around in two days and host the Vandals this Saturday (Feb. 6) at noon Pacific time. At this time, no spectators will be permitted to attend home basketball games due to institutional, regional, and state guidelines in regards to the Covid-19 pandemic.
 
* Saturday's game will be televised live regionally on SWX, with new KHQ/SWX TV sports director Dennis Patchin calling the play-by-play, and former Eagle Marc Axton serving as analyst. Both games will be available via PlutoTV – Thursday is on channel 1060 and Saturday is on channel 1053 -- as well as via https://bigskyconf.com/watchbigsky. Eastern games are also aired live on radio on 700-AM ESPN, 105.3-FM, via the web at tunein.com and via mobile phone app, with pre-game coverage starting a half-hour prior to tipoff. Larry Weir serves as the play-by-play broadcaster. Live statistics from all Eastern home games are available via http://ewustats.com.
 
* Eastern then goes on the road to play Montana State, which entered action this week a perfect 6-0 in the Big Sky and 9-3 overall. The Bobcats have not lost since dropping to 2-3 with a 62-59 loss at Portland on Dec. 22. Montana State is scheduled to play at Weber State in a pair of games this week, with the Wildcats currently sitting at 4-2 in the league and 9-4 overall.
 
 
More Comments from Head Coach Shantay Legans
 
On Rivalry : "In any kind of rivalry game in any sport, you can throw records out. Idaho is always going to play us tough. They played hard and physical, and they challenged us on the glass. They did everything they needed to do to win the game. We made some shots and had some clutch defensive stops when we needed them. The clutch baskets really helped us out down the stretch. I have to give them a lot of credit for coming out and playing a great game. I know Saturday is going to be another dogfight. So we have to be prepared and ready to go. Idaho is going to play hard and physical -- they are going to go at our big guys and try to get them in foul trouble, just like they did tonight. We just have to sustain it and play better."
 
On Idaho: "They played tough and have some really good players. They've had some bad breaks with injuries, but they've come out and competed. Their coaches do a good job of getting their players prepared and fired up to play. This was a dogfight to the very end and was much closer than 14 points. We understand what it means to really respect an opponent. Idaho played really hard and you have to give them so much credit."