Eagles fade late in loss to Illini
The Big Ten is still big trouble for the Eastern Washington Eagles.
After battling to a tie at halftime in their season basketball opener at Illinois, the Eagles shot just 19 percent in the second half as the Illini pulled away for a 66-50 win in Champaign-Urbana.
It dropped Eastern to 0-6 against Big Ten competition, though the Eagles had their moments in this one.
Behind the combined 25 points of Benny Valentine and Brandon Moore, the Eagles chipped away at a 27-20 deficit in the first half. Valentine nailed a 3-pointer with 2:38 left to tie the score, and he and Moore each had buckets to give EWU a short-lived 35-33 lead before Illinois squared the game at halftime.
“Every time we went on a little run in the first half they’d come back with a rebound or something,” said Trent Meacham, who led Illinois with 18 points. “In the second half we were just solid.”
That included a 25-6 run immediately after intermission, as Eastern went 8 minutes without a field goal.
“Illinois cranked it up defensively,” EWU coach Kirk Earlywine said. “We would have had to pitch a three-hit shutout to win the game.”
EWU outrebounded Illinois 19-17 in the first half, with the 6-foot-9 Moore grabbing six. But he had just one in the second half. A big part of the falloff was the play of Illinois forward Mike Davis. The sophomore played 15 minutes off the bench in the second half, and spent a lot of that time hammering Moore. Davis finished with five rebounds, four of them in the second half.
The Illini’s depth was the difference, according to Earlywine.
“I thought fatigue definitely became a factor for us,” he said.
Valentine, a transfer from Texas Tech, finished with 14 points, while Moore had 13.
• Mac Hopson scored 19 points and the Don Verlin era at Idaho got off to a winning start with a 91-69 triumph over Evergreen State at Memorial Gym.
Despite some early hiccups – the NAIA Geoducks (0-2) led by as many as six points in the first half – Idaho eased out to a 44-38 intermission lead and pulled away in the second half by holding the visitors to 37.9 percent shooting.
Hopson, a transfer from Washington State, was one of four Vandals in double figures, helped by the 17 of Kashif Watson – who made 13 of 20 free throws. Luciano de Souza added 16 points and Trevor Morris had 12.
• Renado Parker scored 25 points and Shawn Henderson 20 as North Idaho College cruised to a 114-81 victory over visiting Salish Kootenai College.
The Cardinals (5-0) shot 61 percent from the field, with the 6-foot-6 Parker hitting 10 of 14 shots. Henderson, a recent University of Idaho signee, made 4 of his 5 attempts from beyond the 3-point arc. The Cardinals also outrebounded SKC 38-18.