How will Hayford's new harvest fare?

It's harvest time at Hayford Farms.

And if the initial inspection - two convincing victories over teams that dabbled in the postseason last season - is telling us anything, it just might be a good year.

Jim Hayford, beginning his fourth season as Eastern Washington University's men's head basketball coach, has watched with pleasure, and even fretted a little, as his Eagles clubbed Texas Southern University 86-62 last Friday morning and then raced past Utah Valley State 75-50 this past Monday evening, both at Reese Court.

Texas Southern, coached by Mike Davis, formerly of the University of Indiana, advanced out of the Southwestern Athletic Conference to a First Four game, losing to Cal Poly.

Utah Valley won the Western Athletic Conference title in 2014, but lost in the league tournament and an opening-round game to the University of California in the NIT.

Even though these teams are not necessarily the one's from last March, we're not talking NCAA D-III whipping boys, either.

And holding each of these visitors to Cheney well under Hayford's prescribed 40 percent line of defensive demarcation is a good sign that the youth from his first recruiting class back in 2011 has at last began to blossom.

"What I am hanging my hat on is that we spent a whole offseason saying we have to be a better defensive team, and I thought we put together two really good back-to-back defensive games," Hayford said.

"I like where things seem to be headed," Hayford said. "Things are maturing."

The successful former Whitworth University head coach, where his Pirates were a perennial postseason team and Hayford had a .792 winning percentage, took that scary leap to NCAA Division I competition in 2011. The duty was to try to improve the win yield of a basketball program that had been mediocre since the departure of Ray Giacoletti in 2004.

Two previous regimes produced an 80-127 record, a .386 percentage. Through three seasons at Eastern, Hayford, whose most unproductive season was a .500 campaign at the University of Sioux Falls 15 years ago, has a .425 wins percentage.

But he knew full well of the challenges that lay ahead before signing on to make the daily drive to Cheney from North Spokane.

"I knew it was going to be really hard," Hayford said.

But in crafting a 15-16 finish last season, and an 8-8 Big Sky record that had them tantalizingly close to the league tournament, he knew a play here or there was the difference, both then and now.

"We were just a few breaks away from getting it done in year three," Hayford said.

Hayford said he thinks that has made everyone all the more focused, and all the more determined to make this year special.

He finally has a couple of seniors, Parker Kelly and point guard Drew Brandon. But the youth - if that's what one can call juniors Tyler Harvey and Venky Jois - will only make his team, and the future, better, Hayford imagines.

"When you look at this team and realize two of our premiere players are juniors, that bodes really well for next year as well," he said.

EWU athletics director Bill Chaves thought the direction Hayford was taking the basketball program was worthy of a raise and 5-year contract extension this past June.

"It's taken a little bit," Chaves said. "You don't just go into aisle 17 and pick up experience, you just don't. You don't find it in the local store."

The little steps the program has taken over the past three years are also slowly beginning to make fans take notice, too. Even with last Friday's early start where the Eagles were the first Division I team in the nation to play, there was a raucous student section, albeit one bribed by food and the promise of free slippers.

And enough curious others were part of the crowd of 1,623 to make Chaves say, "It seemed to just work," and Hayford to remark, "We've got a lot of people sharing the journey with us."

The road does not get any easier following a contest with NAIA Walla Walla University that took place Nov. 19 as the Eagles travel to face a top-25 preseason team, Southern Methodist, Saturday in Dallas, Texas. That's followed on the way home by a game Monday, Nov. 24 at legendary Assembly Hall at the University of Indiana.

Just a few games into the season all kinds of questions remain. Will Hayford's No. 1 crop be wheat selling for about $6 a bushel and be made into bread? Or will it be grapes that make a fine and memorable Merlot?

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].