Eastern basketball tops among local sports

When Jim Hayford was introduced as the new head men's basketball coach at Eastern Washington University on March 29, 2011 he offered, "I think the future is bright."

That prediction took four years to initially come to fruition as Hayford guided a talented group to a share of the 2014-15 Big Sky regular season championship and the school's first berth in the NCAA tournament in a decade. The effort was selected as the Cheney Free Press's No. 1 sports story in 2015.

The Eagles would exit the tournament against No. 4 seed Georgetown in a round-one game in nearby Portland, 84-74. Still the 13-seed Eagles finished with the best record for the program in Division I history at 26-9.

"The difference tonight was how they shot the ball and how we shot the ball," Hayford said of the contest at the Moda Center. "We needed a really good shooting night to beat them. We didn't bring it."

Eastern had a five-game win streak snapped by the Hoyas, a string of games that included a most rare win at Weber State, 79-71 in overtime where the Eagles came from 19 down and had a 10-2 edge in OT. Two days earlier Eastern also battled back from 19 points back for an 85-81 victory at Idaho State.

The final Big Sky standings saw Eastern land in a tie with Montana for the top spot, each with 14-4 records, but the Grizzlies had the tiebreaker and would host the conference tournament. The Eagles would treat Dahlberg Arena just like Reese Court where they were 13-2 on the season.

While making the NCAA tournament might be tops in most fans memories, it was the effort at the conference tournament that paved the road to Portland.

Eastern swept through the preliminary rounds with wins over both Idaho and Sacramento State by identical 91-83 scores. Harvey tied the Big Sky Conference Tournament record with a career-high 42 points against Sac State.

But it was their 69-65 win over host Montana that will be remembered for many years.

Montana led 59-48 with 6 minutes, 15 seconds remaining. "We were down 11 and looked dead in the water," Hayford said. But Drew Brandon's basket with 1:33 left gave EWU the lead for good. His two free throws with six seconds to play sealed the win.

For Hayford, there were two bolts out of the clear blue sky for his Eagles in their memorable 2014-15 campaign.

"I knew we were going to need production from a couple of guys," Hayford said. "Bogdan Bliznyuk, the Big Sky Conference Freshman of the Year, was a player who certainly played that role."

Harvey entering the NBA draft was a bit of a surprise.

In a season of memories that included a program-defining win at Indiana, 88-86, Nov. 24, and a number of dramatic comebacks that earned them a tie for the conference title with Montana, what was left undone?

"We met all of our goals," Hayford said. "You always want to win your last game, but there's only one team that gets to do that and it's very unlikely that would be us."

Harvey and Venky Jois were first-team All Big Sky and Hayford shared Coach of the Year honors with Sac State's Brian Katz.

Hayford spent 10 years building Whitworth's Division III program into a national power. The question is can he keep that championship light lit in Cheney?

"There's talent in every class," Hayford said. "We'll find ways to get better."

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.