Eagles’ rally comes up a bit shy
ANCHORAGE – It wouldn’t be an Eastern Washington men’s basketball game without a big first-half deficit followed by the obligatory second-half charge.
Nothing changed Friday afternoon, except this time EWU nearly completed an improbable comeback, but the Eagles got careless with the game in the balance and lost to Michigan 61-53 at Sullivan Arena in the consolation bracket of the Great Alaska Shootout.
“It’s kind of frustrating (repeatedly trailing at half) but we know we can get back if we just do the things coach (Kirk Earlywine) teaches us, blocking out and playing good on defense,” senior forward Kellen Williams said. “The offense will come.”
The offense came along just fine in the second half – until the Eagles needed it the most. EWU (1-5), which has trailed by 12, 18, 11, 18 and 12 in its previous five games, was down 34-21 at the half, but the offense clicked early in the second half.
Marcus Hinton quickly scored seven points and Milan Stanojevic added a pair of 3-pointers as EWU closed within 46-42. It was 49-46 when the Eagles stalled. They missed five straight shots, including Matt Brunell’s close-range bank shot that hung on the rim before rolling off, and then committed turnovers on three consecutive possessions.
“We had 10 turnovers for the game, but we had three right there where we got lackadaisical,” Earlywine said. “We have to get the ball on the rim every possession.”
Michigan (3-2) wasn’t having much success either and could only build its lead to six. EWU’s Trey Gross made his only field goal of the game – a 3-pointer with 1:27 left – to narrow the Wolverines’ lead to 54-53. Jerret Smith was fouled as he drove between two EWU defenders and made both free throws.
Adris DeLeon, who endured a tough 3-of-15 shooting night, had his pull-up jumper blocked by Ekpe Udoh, the last of his five blocks. Michigan sealed it by hitting 5 of 6 free throws in the final 30 seconds.
The game ended with EWU missing four shots in the closing seconds.
“We were somewhat comfortable and they came charging back,” Michigan coach John Beilein said. “We fought it off and the only thing that fought it off is we played terrific defense down the stretch.”
Earlywine took himself to task for EWU’s offensive struggles. The Eagles made just 31.7 percent of their shots. Williams (13 points) was the only player to reach double figures.
“We’ve got to find a way, I’ve got to find a way to increase our level of efficiency on offense,” he said. “I thought it was really important for us to establish an identity for our team early in the year that we were going to be hard to score against and I’ve done a lousy job of coaching offense because of that. You can’t shoot 32 percent and win very many games.”