Fresh off first conference loss, the Eastern Washington women are happy to be home for tough upcoming games

In mid-December, the Eastern Washington women’s basketball team went on a tear that included a program-record 10-game winning streak that boosted the Eagles into first place in the Big Sky.

Most of it, though, was played away from home.

“It feels like we’ve been on the road for two months,” EWU head coach Joddie Gleason said Tuesday. “It’s where you get tested and where you grow as a team.”

As successful as the team was on the road, Gleason and the Eagles are quite happy to be home for the next two weeks when they play four consecutive games at home. That starts with Thursday’s 6 p.m. game against Montana State at Reese Court in Cheney.

“Being in Cheney and having a normal routine at practices, I think the team likes that,” senior guard Jamie Loera said. “It’s nice to be home.”

With a 16-4 overall record and a 6-1 mark in Big Sky play, the Eagles have played only seven regular-season games – plus one exhibition – at home. Their only home loss was an 82-80 defeat on Nov. 29 to Gonzaga, which is ranked 19th in the nation.

Eastern’s 10-game winning streak came to an end Saturday when the Eagles lost 89-81 in overtime to Northern Arizona. The two are tied atop the Big Sky standings with 11 games remaining until the conference tournament.

Between the two, the more difficult remaining schedule appears to be EWU’s, which includes two games against Montana (14-5, 6-2) and Montana State (11-10, 5-3), the third- and fifth-place teams, respectively, in the Big Sky standings.

Last year, the Eagles and Bobcats split their regular-season meetings, with the road team winning both games.

“Montana State is very well coached, and they always defend extremely well,” Gleason said. “They’re active. They work hard. They’re long and athletic and get into passing lanes. They try to make you uncomfortable on the offensive end.”

No Big Sky team has forced more turnovers (376, or 17.9 per game) than the Bobcats – Eastern has forced 350 – but the Eagles average 3.7 fewer giveaways than the Bobcats do, and that has helped Eastern create the largest turnover margin in the conference.

Yet turnovers have been a bigger issue for the Eagles lately, specifically early in games, Gleason said. That has contributed to the Eagles’ recent first-half troubles: They’ve trailed at halftime in each of their past three games.

Although each time the Eagles have either come back to win – against Idaho State and Northern Colorado – or draw even – as they did after being down 13 at halftime against Northern Arizona – it’s something Gleason is trying to help her team understand and overcome.

“I think that it just takes us a minute. We’re trying to figure out what the opponent is doing to us, and the result is we’re a little less aggressive than we are later in the game,” Gleason said . “Or, our team does a really good job of learning and evolving within a game, and we’re able to make those reads and decisions and figure out how teams are trying to defend us.”

Regardless, the Eagles are positioned this week – with games Thursday, Saturday, Monday and Feb. 10 at Reese Court – to assert themselves as the top seed in the conference, and potentially as the team to beat in the Big Sky Tournament.

“It’s definitely going to be a challenge (playing) three games in five days, but our team does really well at focusing on one game at a time,” Loera said. “After last weekend and the split we had, we’re fired up to play again – and even more because we get to (play) at home.”