Things were as close as they could be in this afternoon's (Feb. 19) contest between the Eastern Washington University men's basketball team and the Idaho Vandals in Moscow, Idaho. The game saw 17 ties and 12 lead changes, and although the Eagles led by as many as 14 in the first half, they lost 83-80.
 
The loss snaps a three-game winning streak for the Eagles, who now sit at 14-13 and 8-8 in Big Sky Conference play. The Vandals improve to 8-18 and 5-11, winning three-straight and snapping a three-game losing streak to the Eagles.
 
Eastern Washington was led by Angelo Allegri with a career-high 23 points, plus Linton Acliese III (20 points) and Steele Venters (18 points).
 
"Most of our losses come down to the same thing, giving up high percentage of two's and letting them dictate and do what they want to do offensively. When you score 80 points on the road efficiently, that's plenty of good offense to win, we just have to do better on defense and step up and not let them dictate," said head coach David Riley. "You can survive a hot-shooting night from someone if you stick to your defense and protect the lane, and we didn't do that. We have to get better and the team has to grow. We're right there, we beat the two best teams in the league, but we came down here and didn't have the defensive effort that we needed. We have to get more consistent and figure it out quick."
 
The Eagles came out and made seven of their first nine field goal attempts, including three of five from three-point range. After stringing together runs of 5-0 and 8-0, Eastern Washington held a 19-11 lead over the Vandals.
 
Eastern Washington found its rhythm behind the arc, making five of 10 three-point attempts by the 11-minute mark. Ethan Price and Angelo Allegri hit back-to-back threes and Steele Venters followed up with a layup to give EWU a 7-0 run and a 27-13 lead.
 
The Vandals replied with a 5-0 run after a scoring lull, cutting the lead down to 27-18 before the Eagles got right back in the game with a 5-0 run of their own to pull ahead 32-18. After the Eagles built their largest lead of 34-20, the Vandals came clawing back, making it a 36-33 game with 2:06 left in the half. With less than 30 seconds in the half, Idaho tied the game at 40-40 all to send the teams into the locker room knotted up.
 
After Idaho took its largest lead of the game 46-42 early in the second half, the game moved into ties of 48-48 and 50-50. The second half would see 10 ties, with neither team able to create space or lead by more than three for nearly the entire half.
 
That is until the 2:01 mark, when Idaho took an 80-75 lead, using a 6-0 run. Eastern stayed calm, and a 5-0 run that was capped by a three-pointer by Venters evaporated the deficit and locked things back up at 80-80. With 32 seconds left, Idaho's Tanner Christiansen made a layup to give the Vandals an 82-80 lead. Christiansen would go to the line with 14 seconds left and made 1-of-2 and Eastern came up empty on its final possession as Idaho held on to the 83-80 lead.
 
TOP PERFORMANCES: Angelo Allegri tied a career-high 23 points, his third 20-plus point performance of the season. He was 10-for-15 from the field and 3-for-5 from three-point range, also grabbing six rebounds, two assists and two steals.
 
Linton Acliese III scored 20 points for the ninth time this season and sixth in Big Sky Conference play. Acliese was 8-for-14 from the field and a perfect 4-for-4 from the free throw line, leading the team with eight rebounds and collecting two assists.
 
Steele Venters scored 18 points on 7-of-13 from the field with two triples. He finished with three rebounds, an assist and two steals.
 
Both Ethan Price and Rylan Bergersen finished with seven points and five boards, with Bergersen leading the way with six assists.
 
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE: Eastern shot 50 percent (29-58) from the field compared to 54.4 percent (31-57) for Idaho. The Vandals were also 7-18 from three-point range (38.9%) and 14-18 (77.8%) from the free throw line, while Eastern was 9-for-27 (33.3%) and 13-for-17 (76.5%), respectively.
 
The Eagles had the edge in the rebounding column, 31-to-30, and were just edged in the paint, 40-to-38. Both teams turned the ball over eight times, and Eastern had 12 second chance points.
 
UP NEXT: The final regular season road trip of the year takes place next week on Thursday, Feb. 24 at Northern Colorado and on Saturday, Feb. 26 at Sacramento State. Eastern Washington lost to the Bears but beat the Hornets at Reese Court earlier in January. Both games will be streamed on ESPN+.