Eastern welcomes chance to compete at home
On paper, the game is less intriguing than an exhibition, but Eastern Washington men’s basketball coach Mike Burns doesn’t care.
“It’s just good to have a home game,” the first-year Eagles head coach said. “A home game against anybody would be great right now.”
The Eagles, 1-2 after games in Kansas, California and Colorado, play tiny Cascade College, an NAIA Division II school out of Portland, tonight at 7:05 at Reese Court.
After a disappointing 80-64 loss at Denver last Sunday and a game at 14th-ranked Washington looming on Sunday, the Eagles have some work to do.
“We want to work at getting better on some things we need to improve on,” Burns said. “Offensive executive, concentration, defensive rebounding – those are the primary concerns going into this game.”
The Thunderbirds were 4-2 going into Tuesday’s game against Western Baptist College. They feature five players scoring in double figures, led by 6-foot-6 forward Jered Alsup at 20 ppg, and have decent size with six players between 6-5 and 6-8.
Cascade was 6-25 last year under first-year coach Matt Greenleaf.
“They play hard and they’ve been aggressive defensively,” Burns said. EWU senior captain Marc Axton had 17 points, five assists and eight rebounds at Denver and leads the Big Sky Conference in scoring at 18.7. Sophomore Matt Nelson, the other returning starter, is averaging 9.3 points and 8 rebounds.
The surprise has been true freshman forward Jake Bettinger, who has come off the bench to add 9 points and 3.3 rebounds in 19 minutes a game.
The consistency problem is on the perimeter.
“We’ve gotten good play from the guard position, from Danny (Pariseau), (Eric) Henkle and Deuce (Smith) at times,” Burns said. “There have been some positives.”
Injuries continue to be bothersome. Shooting guard Tim Scheffler saw his first action at Denver, but redshirt freshman wing Henry Bekkering, who sprained a shoulder at Cal Poly, could be out another week.
“That’s been another tough deal,” Burns said. “We haven’t had access to all our guys. “They haven’t played together much, so they don’t know each other very well.”