December fodder nothing new

SEATTLE – Instead of losing on the last play as the football team did Saturday, the basketball team lost on the first play Sunday.

Symbolically, at least.

It was a turnover. It symbolized 29 more to come.

So with that specific tone set instantly, maybe the trauma wasn’t as staggering for Eastern Washington University as it had been the day before. In fact, just hanging with the 14th-ranked Washington Huskies – but not for very long – on Sunday was a minor buzz for some of the basketball Eagles.

“The chance to go out there and play against the best,” said freshman guard James Loe, “that’s just a dream.”

At least until it turns into something else, like the 89-56 drumming Eastern endured at the building some of us like to call Hec No ever since UW pimped out the name to a bank.

It was, officially, the worst loss the Eagles have suffered since a 34-point rout by Gonzaga back around Thanksgiving 1999, but that’s more properly a relative assessment. Even through the recent renaissance of EWU basketball that culminated last spring in the school’s first trip to the NCAA Tournament, the Eagles have had their share of early season hiccups as they tried to play at being something more than just an earnest underdog.

Or don’t you remember the New Year’s Eve calamity at the Spokane Arena last year?

The 27-point output at Cal?

Or some of those beatings in Big Ten fieldhouses?

“One of the things with our program that we’ve been through – both in my three years as an assistant at Eastern and obviously right now – is some dark days in December,” said new head coach Mike Burns.

“Resiliency has been our strength – an ability to bounce back from those dark days.”

That was ever so much the case a year ago, when the Eagles reeled through the first 40 days of the season 3-9, the tires finally blowing out against GU at the Arena – and yet just that quickly getting patched and pumped when the schedule struck 2004.

Just one problem: that team had Alvin Snow and Brendon Merritt, and this one does not.

There was an identity there – OK, sometimes maybe a bit dysfunctional, but an identity nonetheless. Whatever issues could be taken with their shot selection or decision making or general demeanor, no one could take issue with their toughness, desire or will. And no matter how often former coach Ray Giacoletti seemed to go around and around with Snow about one thing or another, no player in EWU’s Division I era won more basketball games – and surely he must have winced from his seat at Hec No at the way the day unfolded.

But you don’t get to keep guys forever. And it takes time for the replacements to carve out their own identity.

This is difficult under any circumstances, but by catching the Huskies on the rebound from their latest stubbed toe against Gonzaga last Wednesday, the Eagles may as well have been wearing pork chop uniforms.

The Huskies didn’t just smell blood, they inhaled it.

“It was tough for our guys to get a catch anywhere on the floor,” Burns said. “You can get the chess board out and line up the pawns any way you want, but if you can’t catch it, it’s hard to run offense.”

That said, Burns also acknowledged the Eagles “had a lack of poise right from the start.”

Which occasionally teetered over into panic, something he didn’t acknowledge.

As Gonzaga did on Wednesday against the Dawgs when Adam Morrison often brought the ball up the floor, Eastern tried to mitigate UW’s backcourt pressure by having senior Marc Axton handle that chore.

It worked – at least in getting the ball across half court. But it didn’t help EWU get into much of an offense and it obviously took its toll on Axton, who not only had seven turnovers but one of his worst shooting games ever.

“In the past, when we played them, he’s had those other guys around,” UW coach Lorenzo Romar said of Axton, “and when he was able to play off those guys, boy, was he something.”

He is not without other guys this year. Freshman forward Jake Beitinger is a terrific addition alongside Axton and sophomore Matt Nelson, and there’s every likelihood they’ll be the best front line in the Big Sky Conference soon enough. But Burns has to find some answers at guard. The top four in his backcourt rotation – not counting injured freshman Henry Bekkering – are shooting a woeful 34 percent from the floor, and have more turnovers than assists.

“We’ve got to do some things to make things easier for them and we’ll do that,” Burns said. “I just think they have to get acclimated to pressure and dealing with it, and then make solid decisions.”

Loe was something of a ray of hope, managing five assists and just a single turnover matched up mostly against Nate Robinson – even if the freshman seemed ready to ask his elder for an autograph.

“Nate, man, he’s an NBA lottery pick,” Loe said. “He’s a great player. That’s why I wanted to guard him and face up against him – because it’s just going to make me better.”

Certainly that’s the theory, and evidence the last four years suggests it’s true.

“We’ve played some road games against very difficult opponents and in difficult environments,” said Burns, who has more lined up later against Gonzaga and Arizona. “Those things wear on a team, but at the same time they toughen kids – if they’re of the character I think we have on this team.”

Or, as Axton put it when asked if this set of teammates has the wherewithal to hang together like last year’s model:

“They have no choice.”

Nothing very symbolic about that.