Feisty Eagles fall to Marquette

ANCHORAGE – Plucky, determined, resolute … Eastern Washington displayed these qualities as it battled a more athletic Marquette squad in the Carrs Great Alaska Shootout late Wednesday night.

From its 25-18 lead with less than five minutes left in the first half to its final edge, 62-60, at 13:51 of the second half, the Eagles (1-1) scrapped and fought but eventually fell to Marquette’s Golden Eagles 83-73.

“Like Marquette we’ve got a lot of young fellas, and I was really curious as to how they would respond to this atmosphere, this tournament, and a team the caliber of Marquette, and they responded very well,” Eastern Washington coach Mike Burns said. “I don’t think we were intimidated by any stretch. Sometimes we made some decisions that reflected our youth.”

Jake Beitinger had a game-high 17 for the Eagles and Ronald Stuckey added 16. Marquette’s Joe Chapman scored 17 and four Golden Eagles (2-1) scored in double digits.

Wednesday was the fourth anniversary of Marquette’s winning the 2001 Shootout over Gonzaga, a 72-63 win that matched now-NBA star Dwyane Wade against Bulldogs legend Dan Dickau. Burns spoke of the Marquette mystique at Tuesday’s practice.

“With a team this young it’s really hard to quantify how playing against a team like Marquette will affect them. I really didn’t know how they would respond,” Burns said after the game. “We don’t have to hang our head after this game. However we are not into moral victories, especially when you go 18 of 34 from the foul line.”

From EWU’s last lead, 62-60, and less than six minutes remaining, the Eagles made 5 of 10 from the line to close out the game. Marquette’s final 10 points came from the stripe without a miss in the last 39 seconds.

“I was watching Gonzaga and Michigan State and they must have made 45 free throws in the last ten minutes of the game and overtime. That’s what you ultimately have to do,” Burns said. “You can do a master’s thesis on how to win basketball games … nine out of 10 come down to free throws and we didn’t do it tonight.”

EWU takes on the University of Southern California today at 1 p.m. while Marquette meets Oral Roberts at 6:30 p.m. Southern Cal was dropped by Oral Roberts 68-48 Wednesday.

“It’s Tim Floyd coaching that basketball team. They’re going to play hard, they’re going to play well, they’re going to play smart,” Burns said of the Trojans. “People will look at that score (against Oral Roberts), but I’ve looked at a lot of tape of Oral Roberts in preparation for this. I think they’re a Top 25 team.”

With the loss, the Eagles won’t be one of the mid-major surprise teams that captures the 28th Shootout title like the College of Charleston in 2002.

But picking off USC today would put Eastern in the fourth/sixth place game Saturday at 1 p.m.

“We’ll learn a lot from this experience,” Burns said. “All of our guys are excited to play in this environment.”