Everything came together for Eastern Washington men's basketball on Friday (Nov. 25) as they defeated Stony Brook, 81-52 to open the Florida International Tournament. Eastern now improves to 2-4 on the season, while the Seawolves fall to 1-5.

The Eagles moved the ball around well against Stony Brook, as four players scored in double figures and 10 players scored overall for the team.

Steele Venters and Ethan Price scored 15 points, while Ty Harper added 12 off the bench. Deon Stroud scored 11 points.

Eastern scored 26 points off of 17 Stony Brook turnovers, while only committing 10 of its own that led to seven points for the Seawolves.

"We are not necessarily a full-court pressure team, but we do like to get out in transition. We only forced four or five turnovers against Washington State. The last few days, we showed our guys film that highlighted chances they could have created turnovers and then to score off of those," head coach David Riley said. "Our bench is really good and I'm comfortable putting them in because I know they will step up. They came in and extended the lead. We were not going to let [Stony Brook] get hot, but we had a bad stretch for the first five minutes in the second half. We wanted to limit their three-point opportunities and I think we did a good job of doing that today. The Big Sky is full of shooters so that is something we are going to have to continue focusing on."

From the beginning of the game, it was clear Venters came to play, scoring five of the team's first 10 points. Eastern led the Seawolves, 10-5, to assert control in the game. With the Eagles up 13-9 at 9:21 on the clock, both teams found their offense. The teams combined to score 15 points in a span of just over two minutes. The Eagles emerged from the flurry of points to lead 22-15. Price was effective at getting into the paint to score and stepping out to connect on his jump shots throughout the first half. Tyreese Davis extended the Eagles' lead to double figures at 27-17, after converting a second-chance layup. The Eagles would go into the half with a 36-25 lead. Eastern shot 48.1 percent from the floor in the opening 20 minutes, while Stony Brook was shooting a 42.1 percentage.

Eastern opened the second half with a 5-0 run, getting a layup from Price and a three-pointer from Stroud. The Seawolves responded quickly with an 8-0 run to cut the lead back to single digits at 43-35 with 17:09 on the clock. The Eagles then found the counter punch with a 6-0 run and the team was back up by 14 at 49-35. Price connected from three again to drive the run. Stroud continued to score for Eastern and Angelo Allegri drained a three to pull away from Stony Brook with a 58-40 advantage. Despite the big lead, the Eagles did not let up in the game and continued to run their offense. The Eastern lead moved above 20 with six minutes left in the game following a layup from Venters. The largest lead for the Eagles would be 29 points at the end of the game, as Eastern closed out the Seawolves, 81-52.

In the game, Eastern shot 55.4 percent from the floor and was 10-of-27(37%) from behind the arc. Stony Brook shot 45.0 percent for the game, going 5-of-20(25%) from three-point range.

Key Statistics
As a team, Eastern had 21 assists with four players recording three in the game.

Eastern's bench was highly productive, scoring 28 points. Stony Brook's scored 18 points.

The Eagles out-rebounded Stony Brook, 30 to 23. Casey Jones had a team-high, six, with Deon Stroud grabbing four. Eastern scored 30 points in the paint to the Seawolves' 26.

Stroud matched his season high with 11 points in the game.

To create turnovers, Eastern had 10 team steals, as Angelo Allegri, Jones and Ty Harper each had two in the game.

Harper had a breakout game, scoring in double figures for the first time since joining the Eagles.

Ethan Price hit 6-of-8(75%) field goals and was a clean 3-of-3 from three-point range.

Cedric Coward again provided good bench minutes for the team, scoring seven points and pulling down four rebounds.

Up Next
Eastern Washington will finish its tournament on Sunday, Nov. 27 against Florida International, the host school, with tip-off at 3 p.m. Pacific Time.