Eagle men struggle, soar in Big Sky sweep over N. Colorado, UND

The Eastern Washington men's basketball team played a couple of good halves of hoops last week.

And it's a good thing they did as it salvaged a Big Sky Conference Reese Court sweep of Northern Colorado, 95-85 last Thursday, and Saturday with a 102-80 win over North Dakota.

Eastern improved to 6-1 in Big Sky play, 15-5 overall and remained unbeaten at home with a 10-0 record with a Saturday meeting with Idaho (2:05 p.m.) to conclude a two-weekend home stand.

But there were times each game where things were in doubt.

In both contests, the Eagles exhibited both lights-out play in one 20-minute half and left fans wondering if the lights were even turned on in the other.

Against Northern Colorado (4-3 Big Sky, 9-9 overall), Eastern raced to a huge 50-27 lead at the intermission, only to see the Bears turn things up in the second half, trimming what had been a 31-point lead to nine at 83-74 with 2 minutes, 42 seconds to play.

"I am really pleased with our intensity, especially in the first half and the first five minutes of the second half," Eastern head coach Jim Hayford said. "It was some of the best defense we've played all season. Obviously, we didn't handle closing out the game the way we would like to."

Eastern free throws, of which they made 26 of 29 for the game, rescued things in the end. However, it was turnovers - a season-high 18 - that helped the Bears rally. UNC enjoyed a 28-15 advantage from points off of turnovers.

The Eagles were led by the 35 points of Tyler Harvey but were playing their second-straight game without Venky Jois, who injured his ankle at Portland State Jan. 15. Eastern had five players in double figures,

Despite no leading shot blocker in Jois, the Eagles had six blocked shots and out-rebounded the Bears 39-27.

Senior Parker Kelly made 5-of-9 3-point shots and finished with 15 points. Another senior, point guard Drew Brandon, had his third double-double of the season with 14 points and 11 rebounds. Ognjen Miljkovic had 11 while true freshman Bogdan Bliznyuk came off the bench for 10 points, nine rebounds and a pair of blocked shots filling in for Jois.

Leading 50-27 at halftime, Eastern picked up where they left off with a 14-6 run and had that 31-point lead at 64-33 with 13:40 left. The Bears followed with a 13-2 run and pulled within nine late in the contest, but Eastern made 13 of its last 17 points from the free throw line.

Eastern held UNC's starters to just 22 points, including a 0-10 performance by leading scorer Tevin Svihovec who came in averaging 13.0 points per game.

"Drew (Brandon) has been playing really well and we did a lot of studying on them," Hayford said. "I thought Parker did a really good job on Cameron Michael who has been playing really well - he limited him to five points and forced backcourt turnovers."

The flip side of the defense was bench points where the Bears outscored the Eagles 63-20, including 21 from Tim Huskisson who averaged 10.6 points coming in and Jordan Wilson's 20, many from NBA 3-point range, after a 9.3 per game average prior.

Eastern struggled in the first half Saturday against UND (2-5, 6-12), trailing 41-35 at the half.

But Brandon, Miljkovic and Bliznyuk caught fire in a 67-point second half for the Eagles.

"At halftime I said, 'we are within six and no one likes how we are playing," Hayford said. "Bogdan, you went 2-for-9 in the first half, if we can get you nine looks are you going to score?' He said, 'yes.' I said, 'O.G., you haven't scored yet - if we get you the ball are you going to score?' He said, 'yes.'"

Miljkovic and Bliznyuk each scored 18 points on 6-of-7 shooting in the second half with Bliznyuk ending with 25 for the game.

Brandon had no points in the first half, but finished with 11 points, a career-high 13 assists and eight rebounds, just shy of the very rare triple-double.

Harvey, who struggled with just 10 first half points led all scorers again in the game with 26. He made 6 of 7 shots in the second half during EWU's 74-percent shooting exhibition.

"I thought the second half was our best 20 minutes of basketball this season," Hayford said. "We were really good offensively and executed well," in front of a loud Alumni Day crowd of 2,097.

Eastern shot 24 of 28 from the free throw line Saturday and were a combined 50-57 or 87 percent in both games matching the league-leading .872 percentage in which they entered the weekend.

The Eagles won for the first time in five tries in Big Sky play against North Dakota and its first win against the school since 1981.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].