Eagle men need home wins

 

Last updated 1/19/2017 at 9:55am



Last time out at Reese Court, the Eastern Washington men’s basketball team got half the job done when it came to “protecting home court” as head coach Jim Hayford likes to say.

Following a convincing 82-64 win over Montana State, the Eagles faded in a 65-59 loss to Montana that ruined their undefeated record at home.

Now in their usual dogfight with nine other teams — all separated by one or two losses for eventual Big Sky Conference tournament seeding with a 3-2 league record — Eastern gets another chance.

Starting tonight (Jan. 19) when 1-4 Northern Arizona visits for a 6:05 p.m. tip, and then Saturday at 1:05 with Southern Utah, the Eagles will not only try, but need, to exit the weekend with their current Reese record of 8-1 sporting a couple more wins.

This week, Eastern plays a pair of teams with a collective 7-28 record overall and 2-7 in the league. Northern Arizona lost at home to Sacramento State 74-62 last week. Southern Utah, which opened the league season with a pair of league road wins, enters its game tonight (Jan. 19) at Idaho with a 4-14 record overall and 2-3 league mark.

“We just can’t have a letdown at home,” Hayford said. “We did a pretty good job with that after losing at home to Montana and came back and got a road win at Idaho State.”

Eastern is coming off a weekend road split, beating Idaho State 92-85 and then falling 70-67 in a thriller at league-leading and preseason favorite Weber State.

In last week’s split, Jacob Wiley had career-high performances of 27 and 36 points respectively, versus ISU and Weber.

“It’s a long race in the Big Sky Conference and its tough travel,” Hayford said.

Following this weekend, the comforts of home give way to the rigors of the road when Eastern travels to face the Montana schools for the second time in a month.

 

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