MISSOULA - Moments before tipoff Thursday night at Dahlberg Arena, the word filtered through the crowd that Tyler Harvey, the Division I national scoring leader, wouldn't play. "Good for us," I heard one fan say behind me as the teams took the court.

Not so fast. As Harvey continued to heal from a quadriceps bruise suffered last week, the Eagles got big games from almost everyone on the court in a 75-69 win that also ended a 12-game losing streak. Here's my story, along with an account from the Missoulian, the Great Falls Tribune, and the EWU Athletic Department.

Those stories were written after the fact, but it's what the Eagles read on Wednesday that turned out to matter more - a lot more. Contained in this official University of Montana release were some quotes from Griz coach Travis DeCuire that disparaged Eastern's defense:

"For us, they're going to come in here and challenge our defense," DeCuire said. "What we're hoping is, when you have the top defense versus the top offense, that the defense tends to hold ground a little bit. On the flip-side, statistically they are maybe the worst defensive team in the league, so we're hoping to gain some ground in that category."

That provided some added fuel for the Eagles' competitive fire, and they responded, holding Montana's two leading scorers, Martin Breunig and Jordan Gregory, to a combined 21 points on 6-for-24 shooting.

"That really fired them up, it was gas for the fire," EWU coach Jim Hayford said. "I think we can get a lot better on defense, but we;re not the worst defense in the conference."

 

 

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