Eastern loves what it sees from guard Valentine

Eastern Washington University men’s basketball fans got a little better idea of what Texas Tech transfer Bennie Valentine is all about at Reese Court on Saturday, when the 5-foot-7 junior guard scored 21 points and handed out five assists in the Eagles’ 90-66 exhibition win over the University of Puget Sound.

Valentine, who shot just 1 of 10 from the field in last weekend’s 58-56 exhibition loss to Carroll College, lit up UPS with a 7-for-12 day from the field.

He also played a major role in Eastern’s inspired defensive effort, which limited the NCAA Division III Loggers to 31.3 percent (20 of 84) shooting in a fast-paced game that played out in front of a couple of hundred people.

“He definitely played better,” second-year EWU coach Kirk Earlywine said of Valentine, whose playing time as a sophomore at Texas Tech during the 2006-07 season was sharply curtailed after he broke his hand shortly after Christmas that winter. “He wasn’t in quite as much of a hurry today.

“But you know, last weekend, in essence, he hadn’t played in a game in two years. He’s game rusty, and I don’t know what there is to cure that, other than to play games.”

With senior point guard Adris DeLeon and first-year JC transfer Chris Busch still waiting to clear up their eligibility issues, Valentine played 27 minutes and made the most of them, as did junior center Mark Dunn, another first-year JC transfer, who posted a 12-point, 12-rebound effort in his 23 minutes on the court.

Jeff Christensen finished with 10 points and eight rebounds for the Eagles, who also had Trey Gross, Milan Stanojevic and true freshman Kevin Winford contribute eight points apiece.

Eastern, after shooting 21 percent against Carroll, made 33 of 72 field-goal attempts (45.8) against the Loggers’ pressing defense, and won the rebounding battle by a 56-42 margin.

Still, Earlywine saw plenty of areas in which his team can improve – especially after watching the Loggers close the first half with a 17-9 run that spanned more than 5 minutes and included five EWU turnovers.

“The thing that was disappointing to me was I thought there was evidence of a lack of conditioning with our guys, especially in the last 21/2 or 3 minutes of the first half,” Earlywine said.

“The turnovers were fatigue turnovers, and we got beat to two or three offensive rebounds that bounced. I thought there were heavy legs out there. And our conversion from offense to defense (after turnovers) deteriorated rapidly in the last 5 minutes of the first half.”

Junior center Brandon Moore, who missed the loss to Carroll with an ankle sprain, started against UPS but picked up a couple of early fouls and played only 14 minutes.

Moore finished with five points and three rebounds.

The Eagles open regular-season play Friday at Illinois.

Eastern’s next home game is Nov. 22 against Texas-Arlington.