PORTLAND, Ore. — Guard
Tyreese Davis scored a career-high 27 points and the Eastern Washington University Eagles shot a season-best 66.7% from the floor to beat the Portland State Vikings on Saturday night, 98-88. The win extends Eastern's NCAA Men's Division I-leading win streak to 14 games and keeps them two up on Montana State for first place in the Big Sky Conference.
The Eagles were red hot right off the opening tip, scoring 3's in each of their first four possessions — two from Davis and two from
Steele Venters — to put up 12 points in the first two minutes.
Cedric Coward converted an old-fashioned 3-point play with 14:39 left in the opening frame to give EWU an 8-point lead, but the Vikings kept fighting back.
PSU's Cameron Parker, who ranks 7
th in the Big Sky in scoring and finished the night with 29, gave the home team the lead at 33-32 with 6:52 left in the half. Eastern responded with free throws from
Ethan Price and a layup from Davis to regain the advantage, which they carried into the half, 47-43.
After the hot start on the outside, it was inside where Eastern made the difference, scoring 50 points to Portland State's 34. After the two made from beyond the arc to begin the game, Davis scored the rest of his 27 from inside or at the free throw line.
"Guys did a great job getting paint touches and finding mismatches," said Head Coach
David Riley after the game. "(Davis) is a mismatch nightmare and we've been talking to the team about how someone's going to step up every night depending on how teams guard us. Tonight it was his turn."
The Eagles also notably had 22 assists on the night, their highest against a Division I program this season.
"When we're focused on us and playing Eastern Washington basketball, we're really, really tough to beat," Riley added. "Our team is just doing a great job of finding ways to get great 'twos' and I think the threat of our shooting opens up space. We do a good job of being picky and get great looks."
The lead changed three times to start the second half before Eastern took over for good after reigning Big Sky Player of the Week
Angelo Allegri drained a 3 with 15:44 left to make it 58-55. Venters, forward
Dane Erikstrup and Coward each followed with layups to push it to 65-56 and PSU never got closer than 7 points away the rest of the game.
Eastern turned the ball over 17 times, their highest total since Jan. 7 against Sacramento State in Cheney. Portland State forced 20 against the Eagles on Jan. 5.
The 66.7% mark on field goals bests EWU's previous high from Thursday, when they hit 64.6% of their shots. In total, they shot 65.7% this week (65-for-99), well above their conference-leading mark of 48.7%, which is good for 16
th in the NCAA. EWU ranks 10
th in the NCAA in Effective FG% (56.3%).
Venters finished with 19 points on the night, putting him 10 away from 1,000 in his NCAA career, all with Eastern.
EWU improved to 18-7 (12-0 Big Sky) with six regular season games remaining. They'll have just one game next week when they travel south to face the Idaho Vandals on Saturday, Feb. 11 at 3:30 p.m. PT. They defeated Idaho in Cheney on Jan. 14, 95-74.
The Eagles' next home games at Reese Court are on Thursday, Feb. 16 vs. Northern Arizona and Saturday, Feb. 18 vs. Northern Colorado. Tickets for those games and all EWU Athletics are available at goeags.com/tickets.
