Eagles foul up at Idaho State
Bengals shoot down EWU at foul line
POCATELLO, Idaho – Behind a balanced offensive attack, Idaho State defeated Eastern Washington 80-74 in Big Sky Conference men’s basketball Friday night.
The Bengals (5-14, 2-5 Big Sky) were led by Broderick Gilchrest and Chron Tatum, each with 19 points. Also hitting double figures were Amorrow Morgan with 18 and Donny Carson, 11.
The Eagles (6-14, 2-5), who lost their third straight game, were led by freshman Kevin Winford with a career-high 20 points, Benny Valentine with 16 and Jeffrey Forbes with 14. Mark Dunn grabbed six rebounds, and Glen Dean had eight assists.
Dunn and Dean, Eastern’s leading scorers, combined for just 11 points as foul trouble limited Dunn to 25 minutes and Dean to 22.
“Glen played terrific,” Eagles coach Kirk Earlywine said. “If we had him on the floor more, the game would be a different story.”
The score was tied at 64 with 7:15 left in a game that featured 14 lead changes. Idaho State outscored Eastern Washington 16-10 the rest of the way, earning its largest lead of nine points with 8 seconds left.
“Foul trouble played a big part in this game, too,” said Earlywine, whose team had just nine players available. “The ripple effect it had, it’s hard for the average fan to understand the impact it had on this game.”
Tatum scored six of Idaho State’s final 10 points, including a clutch jump shot that put the Bengals up 74-68 with 1:25 remaining. Two more free throws by Tatum with 28 seconds remaining gave Idaho State a 76-71 lead. Eastern Washington missed four of its last six shots.
The Bengals went 23 of 31 from the free-throw line, compared with 4 of 10 for the Eagles. Eastern’s four post players had 11 of the team’s 15 turnovers.
“We shot ourselves in the foot, too,” Earlywine said. “It was the discrepancy in fouls and free-throw shooting, as well as the 11 turnovers by our bigs, that was the difference in this game.
“We don’t have that much margin for error where we can make up for those things.”
Idaho State led 39-38 at halftime. There were 10 lead changes in the first 20 minutes.