Eagles fly into ‘hornet’s nest’ at Washington

There are always two extremes on a schedule – the easiest game and the toughest game.

The extremes for Eastern Washington University’s men’s basketball team were theoretically back-to-back, considering they played host to NAIA Division II Cascade College on Wednesday and play at No. 14 Washington this afternoon.

Cascade, however, was anything but a pushover for the Eagles, who struggled to pull out a 78-66 win.

That doesn’t bode well for the Eagles (2-2) in today’s 1 p.m. game at sold-out Bank of America Arena, especially if the Huskies respond to their first loss of the season the way Gonzaga did Wednesday night in beating UW 99-87 in Spokane.

“We just have to come out (today) and play with the effort and intensity that Eastern basketball is supposed to be about,” first-year Eagles coach Mike Burns said. “If we do that, that is all I can ask of our guys and we will be fine. Washington is a great basketball team. I think they are one of the five or 10 best teams in the country, and my hat is off to Gonzaga for beating team. We are going into a hornet’s next and we have to come out swinging.”

The Eagles and Huskies have met in Seattle the last two seasons, with Eastern winning 62-58 two years ago and Washington rolling to a 104-91 win last year. That second score is a concern for Burns after the way his team played defense on Wednesday.

“We have to improve dramatically in terms of our defensive effort,” Burns said. “We started the season with a pretty good effort at Wichita State and an even better one at Cal Poly. But the last two times we took the floor it hasn’t been Eastern basketball the way it should be. We will get better in the next couple of days.”

Eastern trailed Cascade 38-33 at halftime, but Marc Axton scored 27 of his career-high 36 points in the second half to rescue the Eagles. Axton’s outburst, which included a record-tying seven 3-pointers, was the fifth-highest scoring game in school history and pushed his average to 23.

Eastern, which is 1-5 in history against ranked teams, has finals next week before Cal State Fullerton comes to Cheney on Friday.