Last-chance tuneup for Eagles

The young Eastern Washington University basketball team gets another opportunity to find its identity before getting to the meat of its schedule.

The Eagles officially open the season at Reese Court tonight at 7 against Pacific Lutheran and veteran coach Dave Harshman, who is in his fourth year with the Lutes.

“He’s got a plethora of coaching experience,” second-year EWU coach Mike Burns said of Harshman. “I know he’ll have that team ready to play. This is another chance to get out there and work on some things before we go to Alaska. That’s going to be a tremendous challenge.”

The Eagles face Marquette on Wednesday night in the Carrs/Safeway Great Alaska Shootout.

PLU went 5-20 last season. Drew Caldwell, a 6-foot-3 wing, led the Lutes at 11.2 points a game. Jake Carstensen, a 5-10 guard from Almira/Coulee-Hartline, averaged six points as a part-time starter and Andrew Mehalechko, a 6-0 sophomore guard from Post Falls, came off the bench.

Eastern has one exhibition game under its belt, a 75-44 romp past UC San Diego on Sunday. EWU raced to a 46-18 halftime lead. Freshman Rodney Stuckey led the Eagles with 21 points and 6-10 forward Paul Butorac added 10 as Burns used 13 players.

“I thought we did a good job of having a focus and playing with intensity … statistically that first half was as good as we could have hoped for,” Burns said. “Unfortunately, the second half we decided to be a little less than focused. I think that’s going to be the case with a young team. We just have to work on maintaining that focus for 40 minutes.”