‘We just love these moments’: EWU women remain focused for first round game at Oregon State

Unlike some of the other venues the Eastern Washington women’s basketball team could be playing this weekend, Gill Coliseum in Corvallis, Oregon, is a familiar place to nearly every player on the roster.

In addition to being the venue for Friday’s NCAA Tournament first-round matchup at 5 p.m. between the No. 14 Eagles (29-5) and the No. 3 Oregon State Beavers (24-7), Gill Coliseum is where these teams met 17 months ago for an early season nonconference game in November 2022.

The Beavers won that contest 73-66 with a roster that features some – but not all – of the same players who helped OSU finish fourth in a stacked Pac-12 Conference this season.

But for the Eagles, the list of players for Friday’s game is almost identical to the one that hung with – but rarely ran ahead of – the Beavers in their most recent matchup.

That familiarity and experience are two reasons why the Eagles, on a 13-game winning streak, enter this game with the confidence that they can buck history and pull off what would be an unprecedented upset.

“We’re a very mature team,” EWU redshirt sophomore Aaliyah Alexander said. “We’ve gotten so much better from the beginning (of this year) to now. And we’ve got people stepping up in big ways. I am just excited to go into the game with our team.”

That game in Corvallis was one that Alexander might wish to forget. A first-team All-Big Sky selection this year, Alexander had the worst shooting game of her college career against the Beavers last year: 0 for 16 from the field with zero points.

“I mean, I’m not super focused on trying to outdo that, but I think I can only go up from there,” Alexander said with a laugh after watching the NCAA selection show Sunday in Cheney. “This is a great moment to have that second chance.”

There’s another O-fer at play Friday: 0 for 116, the record for No. 14 seeds in the women’s NCAA Tournament since the bracket expanded to 64 teams in 1994. Teams seeded 15th are equally bereft of victories. No. 16 seeds have won just once – Harvard in 1998 – while No. 13s have won 10 times.

But the Eagles weren’t talking much about the odds or about history this week. They were talking about how they think they can get a win – or two – in Corvallis. And a big reason for that is their rich collective experiences.

“We’ve been in so many different positions this year: Playing top schools, being in a conference championship where we start down by 12,” EWU senior point guard Jamie Loera said. “We’ve been in so many different scenarios that we’re just ready for whatever comes at us.”

Loera’s contributions to this year’s team have been significant. She leads the team in total minutes by 128 – nearly 5 per game more than Alexander – and has been their second-best scorer (13.2 per game) and rebounder (5.6). She also has 185 assists and 79 steals, both team highs.

Loera was named the Big Sky MVP and Defensive Player of the Year – the latter for the second year in a row – and has played and started in 63 games over two seasons for the Eagles after playing in 36 games at Arizona State.

“If you have an elite point guard, you’re in every game,” OSU coach Scott Rueck told reporters Sunday. “That’s the way it works, and (Jamie) Loera is a big-time point guard. … When the ball is in (the hands of a) player like that, who can do everything on the floor, can score as many as she wants, can assist, can run the show and understands the game, you’re a really good team. And now, they have all the nice pieces around.”

Those pieces include senior Milly Knowles, the program’s all-time leader in games played (143) who has 106 career starts, and senior Jacinta Buckley, who has played 77 games at Eastern after playing in 52 at UNLV.

Those two – along with Loera, Alexander, Jaydia Martin, Jaleesa Lawrence and Alexis Pettis – played in that game last year and have nearly two more seasons of basketball added to their experience.

“We’ve already been there,” EWU third-year head coach Joddie Gleason said. “You can visualize the arena. You have those thoughts going through your head as you prepare. But once you’re in the tournament, everything cranks up a little more, and we know they’re going to bring their best.”

Last year was something of a down year for the Beavers, who rebounded from a 13-win season to nearly double that total this year. Since Rueck became OSU’s head coach in 2010, the Beavers have been to seven (now eight) NCAA Tournaments with four appearances in the Sweet 16, two in the Elite Eight and one in the Final Four.

They are less experienced overall than the Eagles are, with no seniors, five juniors and five sophomores on the roster.

But they have plenty of talent. Raegan Beers, a 6-foot-4 sophomore, leads the Pac-12 in field-goal percentage (66%) and ranks fifth in scoring (17.7 points per game) and rebounding (10.4). Talia von Oelhoffen, a junior from the Tri-Cities, averages 10.9 points per game, and 6-3 sophomore Timea Gardiner averaged 11.2.

Seeding isn’t the only history that is against the Eagles: No Big Sky team has won a tournament game since 1995, when Montana – as a No. 12 seed – upset San Diego State 57-46. The Grizzlies are the only Big Sky program to win an NCAA Tournament game as a member of the conference (they have four such wins).

Eastern Washington lost its only previous tournament game to Oregon (75-56) in 1987. But the Eagles – who have won a program-record 29 games – can change all that Friday.

“Especially playing Oregon State last year, I think it’s just super cool to have another opportunity to play a Pac-12 school,” Loera said. “We just love these moments, and we play with joy.”