Eastern Washington looks to regain defensive intensity during two-game road trip

Coming off its second loss of the season – but still with a two-game lead atop the Big Sky standings – the Eastern Washington men’s basketball team is back on the road for two games this week: Thursday at Northern Arizona and Saturday at Northern Colorado.

Up first are the Lumberjacks (12-15, 5-8 Big Sky), who have lost six of eight. The Eagles (17-9, 11-2) beat Northern Arizona 85-70 on Jan. 27 in Cheney and have won 14 straight regular-season games in the series (NAU beat Eastern 81-80 in the Big Sky Tournament last year).

The Eagles are looking to get their defense back to the place it was earlier in the season when head coach David Riley said this team had the potential to be one of the best defensive groups he had coached.

Lately, that’s simply not been the case, with their last four opponents scoring at least 77 points – more than the Eagles allowed in all but one of their first nine Big Sky games.

Riley narrowed the focus to the past three games, including a 90-84 loss to Weber State (18-9, 9-5) on Saturday. Following his team’s victory, Weber State junior Dillon Jones – who had 30 points, eight rebounds and eight assists against the Eagles – was named Big Sky Player of the Week for the seventh time this season.

“I think we have a good defensive team, but we haven’t been good the last three games defensively,” Riley said after the loss.

The Eagles have been without freshman guard Mason Williams for seven consecutive games and over that stretch have relied almost entirely on an eight-man rotation.

Freshman Vice Zanki has appeared in three of those games but has played just 16 total minutes and scored three points.

That has forced the Eagles to rely on everyone else to handle the ball a bit more. It has shortened the bench when the Eagles have experienced foul trouble or have played in close games.

Still, the Eagles are two games ahead of second-place Northern Colorado (16-10, 9-4), which is Eastern’s opponent Saturday. The Eagles won their first matchup 77-74 in Cheney.

EWU junior Ethan Price needs 17 points to become the 25th player in program history to score 1,000 points.

The most recent Eagles player to do so was Steele Venters, who ranks 18th on the team’s all-time scoring list with 1,130 points. Venters transferred to Gonzaga following last season.