Their slow shooting start notwithstanding, the Eagles turned the heat on when they needed it the most -- and into first place to boot.
 
Eastern Washington University sank 57 percent of its shots in the second half – including nine 3-pointers -- to roar past Idaho 90-64 in a Big Sky Conference men's basketball game on Saturday (Feb. 6) at Reese Court in Cheney, Wash. The game was the second win in three days for EWU, which beat the Vandals 89-75 on Thursday (Feb. 4) in Moscow.
 
The win catapulted the defending league champions into sole possession of first place in the Big Sky standings. Now 8-6 overall and 7-2 in the Big Sky Conference, Eastern next plays at Montana State on Feb. 11 and 13 in Bozeman, Mont. The Bobcats dropped a pair of games this week to Weber State to fall to 6-2 in the league, tied with the Wildcats and Southern Utah at 6-2.
 
Eastern bounced back from shooting starts of 1-of-12 overall and 1-of-14 from the 3-point line to finish at 48 percent for the game and 36 percent from the 3-point arc (10-of-28). Runs of 11-0 and 10-0 in the second half helped the Eagles pull away for their fifth-straight victory.
 
"In the second half we really got the ball moving," said Eastern head coach Shantay Legans. "That put us in an advantage offensively – every time we got a stop we pushed it and played with a lot more pace in the second half. And obviously we made some open shots – when you make those it really opens up everything. Then we were able to go to Tanner Groves on the low block, and he was able to make some big plays and some adjustments down there to score the ball."
 
Sophomore Jacob Groves led four players in double figures with a career-high 17 points, and fellow sophomore Michael Meadows had 16 as EWU finished with a total of 11 players scoring and seven with at least one 3-pointer made. In the first game versus the Vandals, 10 players scored and eight combined for 11 treys.
 
Idaho was looking for their first win of the season under former Eagle player Zac Claus, and exited the game 0-15 overall and 0-12 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 8-6 overall and 7-2 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). The games were played last Sunday and Monday, so the Eagles played and won four games in the span of just six days.
 
* Eastern is back on top in a league season impacted by numerous cancellations caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Following Saturday's action, Eastern is 7-2, followed by Montana State (6-2), Southern Utah (6-2), Weber State (6-2), Idaho State (5-3) and Sacramento State (4-4). Northern Colorado is at 5-6, followed by Northern Arizona (4-6), Montana (4-6), Portland State (3-5), and Idaho (0-12).
 
* Idaho is 0-15 overall and 0-12, 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 Jacob Groves, the younger brother of junior Tanner Groves, led Eastern in scoring with a career-high 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting from the field. He also had seven rebounds and a pair of assists. Both Groves brothers are graduates of Shadle Park High School in Spokane, Wash.
Sophomore Michael Meadows who scored a career-high 17 versus the Vandals two days earlier, had 16 in the rematch. He made 5-of-11 shots from the field and all five of his free throws, and also had a career-high five assists with a pair of steals. His previous high for dimes was three.
Junior Tanner Groves scored eight of his 11 shots in the second half as he finished the game 3-of-9 from the field and 5-of-5 from the free throw line. He also had three rebounds, an assist and a blocked shot. Groves has five double-doubles this season and six in his career.
Sophomore Ellis Magnuson, whose father played football at Idaho, was the fourth Eagle in double figures with 10. He made 4-of-6 shots from the field and also had two assists and two steals.
Senior Jacob Davison, the preseason MVP in the Big Sky Conference, scored nine points as he moved past Marc Axton into 11th on EWU's all-time scoring list with 1,326 career points. Axton, who was the analyst for the television broadcast on SWX, had 1,319 points from 2002-05. Davison also had five rebounds and three assists versus the Vandals.
Redshirt freshman Steele Venters who was coming off career highs of 10 points and eight rebounds in the first game versus Idaho, chipped in six points.
Sophomore Tyler Robertson hit a pair of 3-pointers and finished with eight points and two assists for EWU.
Junior Kim Aiken Jr., a preseason All-Big Sky selection, had just five points, but he had his third double-figure rebounding performance of the season and 21st of his career with 11. Aiken has one double-double this season and 17 in his career.
 
 
Game Details & Turning Point
 
Eastern hit just one of its first 12 shots in the game, but Idaho was only able to convert that tough Eagle start to a 10-5 lead. Jacob Groves eventually hit four shots – in a stretch in which he attempted six-straight shots for Eastern – and EWU took a 15-14 advantage with 8:55 left in the half.
 
Back-to-back baskets by Magnuson gave EWU its biggest lead at that point of 23-19, and the Eagles eventually led 34-28 at intermission. However, both teams struggled putting it in the basket, with Eastern at 41 percent and Idaho at 32 percent. Jacob Groves ended up with 10 points in the first half and Meadows had a team-high 11 as the Eagles hit 13 of their last 22 shots.
 
The 34 points EWU scored in the first half were a far cry from two days earlier in Moscow when Eastern scored 51 second-half points in a game in which 10 Eagles scored and eight players combined for 11 3-pointers. Eastern was just 1-of-13 from the 3-point stripe in the first half of the rematch.
 
Eastern led by eight on several occasions in the second half, but led by just two when the Eagles went on an 11-0 run. Magnuson scored the first five, Robertson then hit a 3-pointer and Meadows capped the run with a 3-point play to put EWU ahead 55-42 at the 13:36 mark.
 
 Idaho was able to cut the lead to five, but EWU followed with a 3-pointers by Venters, Robertson and Davison during a 10-0 run. A free throw by Davison gave EWU a 70-55 lead with 7:05 left. Eastern led by as many as 26 – the final margin -- and no less than 12 the rest of the way.
 
 
Series Notes
 
* Since 1996 when Idaho first left the Big Sky Conference, the two schools have now played 30 times, with Eastern winning 18 of them. Idaho leads the all-time series 58-33. Since EWU became a NCAA Division I member in the 1983-84 season, EWU is 21-37 against Idaho (11-16 home, 9-17 away, 1-4 neutral). In the 16 meetings since Idaho re-joined the Big Sky Conference in the 2014-15 season, EWU is 10-6, but the average winning margin in the first 15 was just 7.3 points (total of 110). Not including a 25-point Eagle win in 2019 and the 14-point victory on Jan. 26, 2021, the average margin of the other 13 games was 5.5 points.
 
 
More Game Notes
 
* The Eagles are 8-6 overall and with a five-game winning streak are on the roll they had 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 Saturday's game, 6-foot-8 senior forward Scott Blakney is averaging 11.7 points per game to lead Idaho, and 5-11 senior guard Damen Thacker averaged 10.6 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.6 assists. Gabe Quinnett, a 6-4 sophomore guard, chips in 10.2 points and 2.0 assists after scoring a team-high 18 in Thursday's game. 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
 
* Eastern now goes on the road to play Montana State, which is now 6-2 in the Big Sky and 9-4 overall after a 82-74 loss at Weber State on Saturday. The Bobcats dropped their first conference game at Weber State 96-88 on Feb. 4 after having not lost since falling to 2-3 with a 62-59 loss at Portland on Dec. 22. Montana State is now 9-5 overall.
 
 
More Comments from Head Coach Shantay Legans
 
On First Half : "It was very ugly, but you have to give our team a lot of credit. Usually our team is an offensive team that gets our defense going, but today I think our defense got our offense going. We did a great job in that first half of really slowing them down. We slowed them down even more than usual and we made them take shots we wanted them to take. We did a really good job of forcing them into some tough shots in that first half."
 
On 1-of-12 Shooting Start: "We're a team of shooters so you have to keep shooting – I'm going to tell them that if they are open they have to shoot it. Our players will take some shots, and I kept telling them to keep shooting and they'll fall. We ended up making nine 3-pointers in the second half which really separated the game. We were getting the same shots in the first half, we just didn't knock them down. In the second half we did and that's why we had the explosion by our team with 56 points."
 
On Having 11 Players Score: "We have multiple players getting a lot of baskets and shooting a lot of shots. The ball is getting moved around well -- we had 19 assists which is huge. That means we are playing well and everybody is touching the ball. When you touch that basketball it makes you feel like you are really involved. We had players that didn't have big scoring games against Idaho, but they contributed in other ways. When you get contributions like that from your team – especially from your leaders – it's really good."