The acquired DNA for EKG’s — Eagle kind of guys and gals — suggests they wouldn’t have it any other way.
Plenty of hard work has offered its rewards in recent years.
Eastern Washington’s men’s and women’s basketball teams both begin respective defenses of their Big Sky Conference 2023-24 championships this week. Those tandem titles won last season were a first for the university.
The men are home at Reese Court against Montana, Jan. 2 and Montana State, Jan. 4 while the women tackle the same teams, but on the road.
Each approaches the games that really count having struggled through the preseason. The Eastern men with a 3-9 record, and women at 4-8, both know the lumps they took are simply bruises that have healed.
You know, whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
It’s been tradition for Eastern’s schedules to be stout in the lead up to conference play.
This year the men played Big-12 Utah and Missouri as well as Washington and Washington State. And in years past it’s been Cincinnati, St. Johns, USC, Indiana and Gonzaga.
“We challenged ourselves this preseason, playing one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country,” new head coach Dan Monson wrote in an email. “I’ve always been a big believer in doing this, as I think it reveals exactly what you need to work on heading into conference play,” said the former Gonzaga, Minnesota and Long Beach State coach hired in April at Eastern.
Eastern has back-to-back regular season conference titles with respective 15-3 and 16-2 records. Their Achilles heel, however, being the conference tournament where the team has exited unceremoniously in the first round each time.
As for Joddie Gleason, now in year four as head coach, she also knows scheduling and its payoffs after a 59-57 loss to St. Mary’s at a tournament in Hawaii.
“We won’t lose sight that this tough schedule will help us in Big Sky play and we will be ready for that,” Gleason said. The EWU women’s schedule also saw them play tournament teams like Portland and Gonzaga, plus Washington and Washington State.
Gleason’s Eagles established many high points last season. They had a program-best 29-6 won-lost record and won 13 consecutive games to close the season with a 16-2 conference mark. Eastern qualified for the NCAA tournament or only the first time since 1987, losing at Oregon State in the first round.
It was a rugged off-season for both, but arguably more so for the Eagle men.
They not only lost their coach when David Riley moved to the job at Washington State, but the core of its starting lineup who followed him to Pullman.
Former Eags like Cedric Coward, Dane Erikstrup, LeJuan Watts and Ethan Price all now wear crimson. Just four players who suited for Riley’s team — none starters — return for Monson.
Gleason is more fortunate as “We have eight people that are returners,” she said.
Notable for her Eagles is grad transfer Peyton Howard from Seattle University. The Central Valley grad leads the team and ranks third in the conference scoring an average 15.2 points per game. Alexis Pettis (8.6), Ella Gallatin (7.8) and Kourtney Grossman (7.6) are other role players on offense.
Monson illustrated how experience — or lack thereof — stacks up for his team. “When you look at Division I minutes played, there are only five teams in the country with fewer than us,” he said.
Monson found puzzle pieces that include leading scorer Andrew Cook (17.2 avg.) from NAIA Carroll College. Nic McClain (15.1) is in his second season at Eastern after transferring. Sophomores Mason Williams (11.7) and Sebastian Hartman (11.0) are both in season two at Eastern.
As the conference season looms, Monson knows the tough losses matter.
“I felt the schedule we played this November and December was really beneficial for us as a new team and staff,” he explained. “We were able to identify our strengths and weaknesses early on, as well as figure out our rotation.”
Monson added, “We are a much more cohesive unit than we were two months ago and that will benefit us heading into league play.”
Let’s see how that all stands the brief test of time lying ahead.
— Paul Delaney is a Free Press Publishing sports writer. He can be reached at [email protected].
Reader Comments(0)