Idaho State leads wire-to-wire in 78-54 win over Eastern Washington, Eagles fourth straight loss

After missing the Eagles’ game Thursday, Andrew Cook’s status heading into Saturday’s game was unclear, especially after the senior wasn’t in Eastern Washington’s Senior Day lineup.

Regardless, once the senior Cook entered the lineup at the first media timeout, he made his presence known.

Unfortunately for the Eagles, not many of his teammates did the same.

Cook matched Idaho State leading scorer Dylan Darling, with each guard scoring 24 points for his respective team. But Darling got a lot more help than Cook did, leading the Bengals to a wire-to-wire 78-54 victory in the penultimate game of the Big Sky Conference regular season.

“I thought Cook and Sebastian (Hartmann) were the two guys that really fought and got (the ball) inside and were able to fight for it,” EWU head coach Dan Monson said. “But then everybody else kind of backed down.”

Hartmann finished the game 3 for 3 from the field and grabbed a team-high four rebounds to go with six points, but the sophomore only played 22 minutes before he fouled out with 7:50 left in the game.

By then, the Eagles were down 57-43, having recently cut the Bengals’ ever-present lead down to eight. But from there, Idaho State continued its run and extended the lead to 20 on a driving layup from Darling, the Central Valley High School graduate who has led a resurgence for the program under fellow CV grad Ryan Looney, ISU’s head coach.

Idaho State reached 10 Big Sky victories for the first time since Looney became head coach in 2019. The Bengals (18-12, 10-7) are tied with Portland State for third place in the Big Sky with one game left until the conference tournament next week in Boise.

The Eagles (10-20, 6-11) are going in the other direction. The loss was their fourth in a row and dropped them alone into eighth place, one game ahead of ninth-place Weber State, which beat the Eagles 66-64 on Thursday.

Eastern’s 20 losses are the program’s most since it went 10-21 in 2012-13, which was also the last season in which the Eagles failed to win at least 10 Big Sky games.

The issues that plagued Eastern were familiar: turnovers and poor rebounding.

Eastern committed 14 turnovers – 10 of which before halftime, when they trailed 40-29.

But the rebounding deficit – 44-25 – was the real difference maker. Only in its December loss at South Dakota State (47-23) had Eastern been beaten so badly on the boards this season. Idaho State made 26 of 61 shots, and of the 35 misses, it rebounded 18 of them.

That led to 25 second-chance points. Eastern had two of those.

“When they shoot it, four guys are running in there, and we knew that in advance,” Cook said, referring to Idaho State’s Big Sky-leading plus-8.9 rebounding average.

“But we did not match their toughness,” Cook said, “and they obviously wanted this game a lot more than us today, so that was frustrating.”

Cook finished 7 of 16 from the field and made 9 of 10 free throws. He also drew 11 fouls and had two assists compared to one turnover. No other Eagles player scored more than six points.

Sophomore Mason Williams, EWU’s second-leading scorer, finished 0 for 5 from the field, did not attempt a free throw and was held scoreless for the first time this season.

Idaho State also got 12 points from senior Isaiah Griffin, 11 from graduate Connor Hollenbeck and 10 from graduate Jake O’Neil.

Now the Eagles will prepare for a quick-turnaround game Monday at Montana, which lost to Portland State on Saturday and is competing with Northern Colorado for the regular-season Big Sky championship.

“If we can knock off the No. 1 seed, I think that’d be a very big confidence booster for us,” Cook said.

“The whole of the season can change with that one game.”

Women

Idaho State 75, Eastern Washington 60: The Eagles (10-19, 6-11) lost their fourth consecutive game and guaranteed themselves a bottom-four seed in the Big Sky Tournament after a loss to the Bengals (13-15, 8-9) at Reed Gym in Pocatello.

Senior Alexis Pettis scored 13 points, freshman Jaecy Eggers added 11 and freshman Kourtney Grossman scored 10 more in the loss for the Eagles. Grossman also grabbed 10 rebounds, setting an Eagles freshman record for rebounds in a season with 291. That total leads all players in the Big Sky .

Senior Tasia Jordan scored 21 points for the Bengals, who shot 49% from the field and made 20 of 29 free throws. Idaho State won its fourth in a row.

Eastern will close out the regular season at home against Montana on Monday at 6 p.m.