CHENEY, Wash. — The Eastern Washington Eagles (17-9, 10-2 Big Sky) erased a 17-point second half deficit to tie the game with under four minutes remaining, but the visiting Weber State Wildcats (18-9, 9-5 Big Sky) prevailed in a thrilling contest at Reese Court on Saturday afternoon, 90-84. Weber State's Dillon Jones led all scorers with 30 points.
"I think we've got to look in the mirror a little bit and refocus ourselves on our defensive identity," said head coach David Riley. "When teams talk about us, they talk about how physical we are, how big we are. I think they're referring to the offensive end, and I want teams to feel us a little more defensively."
Eastern couldn't find their shooting touch in the first half, making just 10 of 28 shots including an ice-cold 1-for-12 from beyond the 3-point line. Up by 6 early, the Eagles made only one of their next 13 field goal attempts as WSU built out an 11-point halftime lead, thanks in part to 14 points from Jones, who was the unanimous pick for Big Sky Preseason MVP.
That margin ballooned to 17 at 10:28 of the second as Eastern struggled to contain the Wildcat offense. WSU put together an 8-0 spurt in back-to-back-to-back possessions, capped by a fastbreak dunk by Jones.
From there, however, the comeback was on.
With a raucous crowd behind them, the Eags put together a 22-5 run — highlighted by a four-point play by Cedric Coward and an emphatic dunk over traffic by freshman Sebastian Hartmann — to tie the game at 78 apiece with 3:51 left.
Jones stopped the bleeding with a pull-up jumper to retake the lead then found guard Blaise Threatt with a great backdoor feed and the Wildcats never looked back, pulling out the road win.
"At the end of the day, we shouldn't have put ourselves in that position," Riley continued. "We shouldn't put ourselves in a position where we've got to win a game giving up 90 points."
"The last three games we've gotten away from being tough… we've got to find that again."
Jake Kyman led the Eagles with 19 points, followed by LeJuan Watts (15) and Dane Erikstrup (14) off the bench. Eastern finished the game 26-for-54 (48.1%) from the floor after shooting 61.5% in the final 20 minutes, while WSU shot 54.1% (33-61) overall.
It marks the first home loss of the season for EWU, who are now 29-5 at Reese Court in three seasons under Riley. They remain in first place in the Big Sky Conference with a two-game lead over second-place Northern Colorado and a 2.5-game lead over Weber State, who moved into third place with the win.
The Eagles play at Northern Arizona next Thursday.
Eastern's next home game is Thursday, Feb. 29 vs. Montana, followed by the regular season home finale on Saturday, March 2 vs. Montana State. Tickets for both of those games and all EWU Athletics events are available at goeags.com/tickets or via the EWU Athletics Ticket Office at 509-359-6059.
ABOUT EASTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS
Eastern Washington University Athletics sponsors 14 intercollegiate sports, six for men and eight for women, both as learning opportunities for its most athletically talented students and as an enhancement to student and community life. Eastern is affiliated with Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and is a member of the Big Sky Conference, an association of 10 regional schools with comparable enrollments and academic goals.
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