Cautious Eastern On A Roll Opens Tournament Against Team It Beat Twice This Season
Steve Aggers has been around college basketball long enough to know that seeding normally means squat in a post-season conference tournament.
Especially when you limit the field to the top six teams.
So on the eve of the Big Sky Conference tournament, which will determine the league’s automatic berth in the NCAAs, Eastern Washington’s third-year head coach wasn’t about to overstate the importance of the No. 3 seed his team brings into the event.
“We’re more proud than comfortable with the fact that we finished third in our league,” Aggers admitted Wednesday afternoon, prior to putting his Eagles through final preparations for tonight’s 5:35 opening-round matchup against sixth-seeded Cal State Northridge at Northern Arizona’s 7,000-seat Walkup Skydome.
“I think (two-time regular-season champion) Northern Arizona has to be the favorite because of the homecourt advantage and what they’ve done the last two years. But with the other five teams involved, I don’t think seeding is a huge thing. They’re all very well balanced and capable of winning this thing.”
Eastern (16-10 overall, 10-6 in the Big Sky) opens against a Northridge team (11-15, 7-9) that finished sixth in the final league standings. Fourth-seeded Montana (16-13, 9-7) and No. 5 Montana State (17-10, 9-7) meet in the other first-round game at 8:05.
The Eagles beat the Matadors twice - 85-77 at home and 87-80 on the road - during the regular season, but neither win is doing much, presently, to ease Aggers’ concerns.
“I still think they’ve got one of the most athletic teams in the league at every position,” he said. “They’ve got five quality perimeter-type players that are quick and outstanding ballhandlers. And what they’ve been doing well lately is shooting the 3.”
Northridge made 10 of 21 3-pointers in just the first half of last Saturday’s 101-87 blitz of Idaho State and leads the Big Sky in scoring average at 83.6 points per game. Four Matadors, led by forward Mike O’Quinn at 15.6, are averaging more than 10 points per game.
“They’re a tough team to match up with, because they can potentially play four perimeter players at one time. And they’re extremely quick,” Aggers said. “Obviously, we have to play great perimeter defense, stop their dribble penetration and get up on their shooters.”
Working in EWU’s favor is the fact that the Eagles have won six of their last seven games and have one of the league’s hottest players in junior guard Shannon Taylor, who was named the Big Sky’s player of the week on Monday.
Taylor, after starting early in the season, has averaged just more than 23 points off the bench in Eastern’s last five games. With 69, the first-year transfer already ranks second behind Justin Paola (77) in career 3-pointers, and he is coming off back-to-back games in which he scored 33 and 24.
“Any time you have a new player transfer, it’s going to take some time for him to get comfortable with his role within the system,” Aggers said of the 6-foot-3 Taylor. “I think he’s comfortable now with his role as sixth man, super sub, or whatever you want to call him.
“He’s given us a great dimension off the bench in terms of scoring the last couple of games.”
The Eagles have also been getting solid, consistent play from sophomore point guard Deon Williams, who leads the Big Sky in assists.
But the key to the outcome of tonight’s game, Aggers said, is effort.
“At this stage of the season, both teams will be well-prepared,” he explained. “It’s just a matter of competing and staying tournament tough.
“San Francisco showed everybody that in the WCC tournament. They came in 7-7, but in the games I watched they just played so darn hard. They were the aggressors, and that’s what we’ve been in the last eight games.
“We just need to continue to do that.”
, DataTimes