Eastern rolls over Idaho behind McBroom, Von Hofe

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Austin McBroom's 3-point shot just 12 seconds into last Saturday's Big Sky Conference men's basketball game with Idaho gave Eastern Washington a lead they would never relinquish and the Eagles went on to score a dominating 74-60 win over the Vandals at Reese Court.

McBroom's points were the first of a game-high 26 for the graduate transfer as the Eagles thrilled much of the crowd of 3,262 by racing to numerous big leads.

"It sure is nice to play on our home court," Eastern head coach Jim Hayford said. "I feel like if our guys could have gotten a couple of more home games in December and preparation weeks of practice, we would have been a lot further along right now."

Eastern (1-2 Big Sky, 7-8 overall) had played 17 of its last 20 games on the road dating back to last season's Big Sky and NCAA tournament.

The Eagles continue league play at home hosting Southern Utah tonight (Jan. 14) at 6:05 p.m. Then Saturday, Jan. 16, Eastern meets Northern Arizona at 12:05 p.m.

Rarely were the Eagles challenged by the Vandals who entered the game 2-0 in conference play and left Cheney at 10-6 overall.

McBroom hit 8 of 14 shots from the field, including 6 of 10 3-point attempts. Junior Felix Von Hofe added 19 points and five 3-pointers to help EWU to a 15-of-29 performance from the 3-point arc. Julian Harrell scored 14 in his starting debut as an Eagle, missing much of the season so far due to a hand injury.

While senior Venky Jois was limited on offense to just nine points, his four blocked shots moved him into the No. 2 spot on the Big Sky career leaders list with 212.

Hayford had a hunch that McBroom might be hard to stop.

"We didn't think they had a good matchup on Austin McBroom, and we wanted to put the ball in his hands," Hayford said. "He's obviously an extremely quick player and a great shooter."

The Eagles made nine of their first 11 shots to lead by 16 on several occasions in the first half. Eastern opened the second half on an 8-0 run to take its biggest lead of the night at 24. The closest Idaho came was 11 with 1:01 left.

The Eagles are one of the lowest ranked Division I teams in field goal percentage defense held Idaho to just 30 points in each half on 31.3 percent shooting from the field.

Earlier, Hayford pointed to a lack of practice, due to a rigorous schedule of road games. But that changed in the lead-up to the conference home opener.

"We've really been challenging our team to step up defensively," Hayford said. "To hold that Idaho team to 31 percent and allow only 30 points in each half, I was really pleased with how we played. I think about 95 percent of practice this week was defense."