As improbable as it might sound, Eastern Washington was the hottest college hoops team in the country this time last week.
While Gonzaga might dominate local hoops headlines, the team from Cheney was riding an 18-game win streak, by far the longest in the country at the time. They'd already clinched the regular season Big Sky title, boasting an undefeated conference record. EWU hadn't lost since Dec. 13.
So traveling to Pocatello to play a mediocre Idaho State team with a 10-19 record seemed like — pun intended — a layup.
Whoops!
The Eagles' feathers got clipped with an out-of-character 71-63 loss last Saturday. And despite a raucous crowd for Senior Night at Reese Court on Monday evening, the Eagles weren't able to pick up a bounceback win against Montana State (the Big Sky's second best team), seeing a late comeback fall just short in a 79-74 defeat.
Being on the doorstep of perfection only to face defeat twice in a row really underscores how fragile a great year is for small conference teams like Eastern. This season has been an amazing journey for the Eagles, but to realize their NCAA Tournament dreams, there's still work to be done at this week's Big Sky Tournament (March 4-8) down in Boise.
If you had told someone in mid-December that EWU wasn't going to lose another game until late February, they would've rightfully thought you were a crazy person. To say Eastern got off to a rough start to the 2022-23 season would be an extreme understatement. The Eagles started nonconference play 0-3. After the aforementioned loss on Dec. 13 at Texas Tech, they were sitting with an ugly 4-7 record. To be fair, they played a challenging schedule for a Big Sky school — Tech, Washington State, South Dakota State, Santa Clara, Yale, etc. — but losses are still losses. Yet despite all of the setbacks, EWU second-year head coach David Riley saw positives in his team. They weren't folding despite the lack of victories.
"We had a talk sometime around the Washington State game about how adversity can do two things — it can tear you apart or bring you together. And we really embraced that adversity. We learned from it," Riley says. "And what we talked about then was building our season on the house of bricks versus a house of cards. So these good teams that we're playing were poking holes in our foundation, and we had to get them fixed."
"We were building in the year on a solid foundation and not kind of getting fake hope that we're super good because we won all these games at the start the year," starting sophomore and English forward Ethan Price says about the positives of the difficult schedule. "Obviously it's tough. You don't want to lose these games, you want to be winning as much as you can, but just to trust that process. And Coach Riley kind of reiterated that a lot of the teams that won championships started the season really bad, you know?"
For the players, the switch seemed to get flipped after a victorious journey to the Big Sky State during the last week of December. The Eagles were picked to finish fifth in the conference before the season started, but a hot start with two road wins at Montana and Montana State got the ball rolling in the right direction.
When speaking of the team's recipe for success, Riley cites unselfishness, depth and competitiveness. Now sporting a 22-9 record, this is not a star-driven squad, but a true team where everyone knows their roles. Four players average double figures — Price, forward Angelo Allegri, and guards Steele Venters and Tyreese Davis — but Venters tops that list at only 15.1 points per game. Nobody on the team averages over six rebounds per game, but five guys snag at least four boards per contest. The only standout team statistics aren't the typically eye-catching ones: The Eagles' field goal percentage of 49.1% is 11th best in the country (they rank fourth in 2-pointers at 59.3%) and are 41st best at assists per game (15.4). It may sound overly simplistic and kinda no duh, but the key to EWU's successes is passing to get high percentage shots.
Part of that comes down to the offensive system Riley has honed since taking over the lead job after Shantay Legans left the program for Portland following the Eagles strong showing in an opening round loss to Kansas in the 2021 NCAA Tournament. For Price and his teammates, the faith Riley has in them to be creative basketball minds in-game rather than cogs in a system really gives them confidence and forms a tight knit bond between the players and coaches.
"I would say [our style] is more concepts than sort of set plays," Price says. "Our offense is predominately just [based] on concepts of how to read screens, how to come off stuff, just reading the game.
"And early in the season, maybe you make a quarter of those reads right," Riley adds. "Halfway through the year and making 50 percent of those reads right. When you're making them consistently, correctly, and you string three or four reads together in one possession, it's really hard to guard."
But despite soaring high on the win streak for much of the past couple months, the reality of being a low-major team still exists. Because of the early season struggles, there is no way that EWU is getting an NCAA Tournament at-large bid. The squad is for sure going to be playing post-season basketball — the NIT invites every regular season conference winner who doesn't make the NCAA Tournament — but that's not the goal. With three more wins in Boise at the Big Sky Tourney, the Eagles will be flying to the Big Dance. But they can't afford a slip-up like the ISU or MSU games. There's a target on their back thanks to being the tourney's top-seed, but at this point in the season the guys from Cheney are used to it.
"I think there's always going to be pressure when you're on a winning streak, but I think the message the coaches have been trying to get across is just take it one day at a time," says Price. "Just be present. Because no matter what, you can't predict the future. Just win the day, we like to say. Go 1-0 today." ♦
Big Sky Basketball Tournament • March 4-8 • Televised on ESPN+, ESPNU, ESPN2
