College basketball

Eastern Washington’s first basketball exhibition of the season, an 82-71 loss Thursday night to a team from Australia, reinforced what new EWU coach Steve Aggers already knew.

“We just have a lot of work to do,” said Aggers, who took over in July, after the firing of John Wade.

Where to start?

“We gotta do a much better job of handling the basketball,” said Aggers, noting EWU’s 22 turnovers. “And I haven’t done a good job of getting the team in the kind of physical condition they need to be in. We’ve had to teach so much because everything is so new, so I haven’t done as good a job as I need to do with conditioning. But we’ll get that corrected.”

Aggers came to EWU from Kansas State, where he was an assistant.

Sloppy ballhandling was only part of the story in Aggers’ debut. Another was Clarence Tyson, who made 15 of 19 field goals, most in the gimme range, as the Aussies - known officially as the Townsville Suns - fully exploited the absence of suspended EWU center Melvin Lewis.

The 6-foot-8 Lewis, a senior and the Eagles’ top returner, was suspended by EWU while the school and NCAA investigate the validity of credits he earned in junior college.

With Tyson scoring 31 points and Townsville guard Cameron Dickson getting 27, the Suns led by as many as 23 points. The 6-8 Tyson victimized EWU forwards Mike Sims and Adam Dean for eight points in a 3-minute span as Townsville padded its lead to 80-57 with 3:32 to play.

Still, there were promising signs for an EWU team determined to improve on last year’s 6-20 record:

Off-guard D’mitri Rideout hit 10 of 20 from the field, symbolizing the Eagles’ apparent new resolve with an emphatic one-handed dunk over Suns forward Wayne Cowan in the final minute as EWU hustled to make the final margin respectable.

Forward Luke Egan, admittedly trying to impress his Aussie countrymen, finished with 15 points.

Sims, a smooth redshirt freshman from Federal Way, scored 10 points on 4-for-5 shooting. Moments after Tyson swatted Dean’s turnaround in the opening minutes, Sims came off the bench and boldly attempted the same shot. Tyson could only watch - the shot was perfect, the ball barely rippling the net.

Afterward, Rideout’s optimism was obvious.

“This year, the coaching is a lot better,” Rideout said. “I commend the coaching, I love the coaching, I love the system we work under.

“It was the first game, that was all it was. … I figure we’ll be ready in two weeks, (for the opener) against Washington State.”

WSU plays tonight

Washington State plays the first of its two exhibitions tonight at 8:30 at Friel Court. The Cougars’ opponent will be High Five America, which fell 74-63 to Oregon on Thursday.

, DataTimes