Eastern’S Bubble Bursts Before Party Gets Into Full Swing

You want to talk bubble teams? Start with Eastern Washington.

Not in the context of Selection Sunday. Come Sunday at EWU, you will expect the Eagles to be scattered on spring break to beachfront destinations of their choice - Ilwaco, if necessary, should Ipenema not fit the budget. The NCAA can ship teams to Buffalo and Cleveland if it wants, but there’s something to be said for the sub-regional in Cabo or Cancun, too.

You can drown your sorrows in sunshine.

The sorrow and the pity of Eastern’s 1999-2000 basketball season are that the Eagles were Big Sky Conference champions one night and afterthoughts just eight days later. The former can never be taken away from them, and that’s justice served.

But the latter cannot be undone, either.

This is Eastern’s bubble. A good team and a program worthy of increased respect, the Eagles nonetheless are not yet ready for prime time.

At this point, they still can’t dance.

It would be convenient to call Friday’s 82-65 spanking at the hands of Northern Arizona in the semifinals of the Big Sky tournament at Dahlberg Arena a microcosm of Eastern’s year, but it was no such thing.

Over the course of their championship season, the Eagles generated a good deal of excitement in January and early February and, as coach Steve Aggers sadly acknowledged and took responsibility for, peaked too early. Their best basketball was played a month ago.

But Friday night, the Eagles never got a chance to peak at all.

NAU, in its third tournament title game in three years, opened with your basic surgical strike. The Lumberjacks’ motto is “Recruit to Shoot,” and under former coach Ben Howland - a Gonzaga assistant long ago - they led the NCAA in 3-point field-goal percentage three years running, and the Sky in shooting overall.

With Mike Adras in charge, the Jacks have eased off somewhat. On this night, they only made their first 12 shots.

“I believe we’re capable of that every night,” Adras said.

And Dudley Moore always goes home with Bo Derek.

With NAU playing defense as well as the Eagles weren’t, this one got out of Eastern’s control quickly - if not completely out of hand. That the Eagles needed a long 3-pointer by Deon Williams at the halftime horn to stay within 10 points was a telltale indicator.

So was the fact that NAU’s Cory Schwab blew up Eastern for 20 points.

In playing the Jacks, you expect the shots from Ross Land to kill you. No player in NCAA history has made more 3s with a higher percentage than the 6-foot-5 senior, and again he burned the Eagles for 24 points - giving him 75 in three meetings this year.

But Schwab’s line in the two previous Eastern games was horrid: 1 of 9, 0 of 5 from 3-point range, three points - making his breakthrough Friday all the more maddening.

It was the second straight game that a supporting player - Schwab averages just 9.5 points a game - from Eastern’s backyard proved to be a difference-maker. In the regular-season finale against Montana, a loss which cost EWU the host’s role this weekend, Spangle’s Travis Greenwalt - who grew up 20 minutes from the Eastern campus - went off for a career-high 16 points and eight rebounds. Schwab, meanwhile, is a graduate of Curtis High School in Tacoma who went unrecruited by Eastern and virtually everyone else on the Division I level until he made some noise at Tacoma Community College.

Of course, Eastern has several shooters of Schwab’s ilk. But the Eagles don’t start five the way NAU does.

“It’s a real commodity when everybody on the team can hit the 3,” Schwab said. “A team can’t slack off and help on defense because even our big guys can hit the 3. That’s what they look for here - guys who can shoot the ball.”

Aggers looks for them, too, but in the upcoming weeks and months, he’ll be looking for something else.

“I know what we’ll be doing this spring and during the off-season - and it’s not the weight room,” he said. “We’ll work on the defensive end of the floor. We’ve got to improve that. You get in this stage of the season, and defense and rebounding win. And we have not been as good a defensive team lately as we were early in the season.”

But then, that’s true of almost all aspects of Eastern’s game.

The loss to Montana last weekend was a crusher in many respects. For Eastern, the opportunity to host the tournament would have been symbolic of its progress as a program - but, frankly, a loss like this could have happened just as easily in Reese Court. Still, it’s notable that the Eagles haven’t won in Dahlberg since 1990 - their win in Missoula last year having come in a high school gym across town.

In a league in which the top six teams are remarkably even, the Eagles needed every edge - including having its “A” game at the right time of year.

“Clearly, we have been struggling the last week of the season,” said Aggers - who in his postgame comments eventually stretched that time frame to 10 days, two weeks and finally two-and-a-half.

“You try to keep things in perspective. We took over a program five years ago that was perennially in last place. We draw solace from the fact that we were conference champions and that we took a major step in a positive direction. But are we disappointed? Hell, yes.

“Our kids played with great heart all season, but we’re not as good a team as we were earlier and that’s my responsibility.”

Fifteen-and-12 is not a record that commands attention. In Division I, 146 other teams won more games this winter.

But it’s doubtful any of those 146 teams have made the jump the Eagles have - to simply be in the position where they can feel this kind of pain.

“It’s a disappointing way to go out as a senior,” said Ryan Hansen. “But a few weeks from now, I’ll look back and see we accomplished something this school has never done before. And I know they’ll have another great year next year.”

Aggers, for his part, can see beyond winning percentages and trophies.

“We have people who care now,” Aggers said. “I’m getting crank calls at my house. Five years ago, nobody cared enough to call me.

“And I’m getting some good calls, too, and some wonderful letters. There are people behind our program now. We’re going to be back.” Bet your bubble on it.