By BRANDON HANSEN
Correspondent
Men's basketball plays the waiting game
Eastern Washington fans found out whether or not they'll be celebrating a 10th consecutive berth in the Big Sky Tournament on Tuesday night when Montana State faced off against Idaho State.
If ISU lost, the Eagles will be headed to the postseason largely thanks to an amazing performance by junior Marcus Hinton, who nailed a game-winning 3-pointer for an 82-79 Eastern victory last Thursday against Idaho State.
In that game, Hinton made an incredible 6-for-6 attempts from 3-point range and had a season-high 24 points.
Last Saturday, the Rodney Stuckey show continued as the sensational sophomore dropped 18 points on Sacramento State in a 80-72 win for the Eagles.
That put them at 15-14 overall, 8-8 in the conference, and hoping for a little help from other Big Sky teams.
They got just that from Montana, which defeated Idaho State in overtime on Monday, 72-71, setting the stage for the showdown on Tuesday night.
Eastern can only make the Big Sky tournament as a sixth seed, where they would play the third seed, which strangely enough, is projected to be Montana.
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It's a garbled mess of ifs and buts.
The Big Sky playoff scenario matrix shows that Eastern still has a chance to make the conference tournament if they win their next two games at home this weekend, and Portland State loses their next two.
But that's not enough: Both teams would have 6-10 Big Sky records, and in order for the Eagles to win the tiebreaker, Northern Arizona (which is third in the conference at 10-4) would have to finish higher in the standings than Idaho State (which is fourth in the conference at 9-5).
Eastern put itself in this opportunity for another postseason appearance thanks to an 80-61 victory over Portland State on Feb. 15, and a nail-biting 66-63 victory over Sacramento State on Feb. 24.
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