Eastern Washington loses guard Andrew Cook for season with ankle injury

The Eastern Washington men’s basketball team defeated Carroll College 87-74 in an exhibition game on Monday night at Reese Court in Cheney, and the sad irony was that Andrew Cook wasn’t there for it.

That Carroll is on this year’s schedule is a nod to Cook, who spent his first three years of college at the NAIA program in Helena. While at Carroll in 2023-24, Cook was named Frontier Conference Player of the Year, and in 2024-25 he was Eastern Washington’s leading scorer.

But Cook won’t play at all this season, after the grad senior guard broke his ankle during a recent practice.

“It was unfortunate,” second-year EWU head coach Dan Monson said. “It was our first scrimmage of the year, and there were 19 seconds left in a tie-game scrimmage. He went in for a tough lay-in and got spun out off balance and just came down wrong on somebody’s foot.”

The scope of the injury was significant: multiple ankle fractures as well as cartilage damage.

Cook had surgery last week in California, where he is able to recover at his family’s home in Huntington Beach. Monson said his hope is that Cook can join the team in Los Angeles when the Eagles play at UCLA on Nov. 3.

Last season, Cook averaged 15.8 points per game and made 88.1% of his free throws, the best rate among qualifying players in the Big Sky Conference.

As a player who competed at the NAIA level previously, and whose eligibility was to expire following the 2024-25 season, Cook was given an extra year of eligibility for this season as part of an NCAA waiver. Whether Cook could apply for and receive a medical redshirt for this season is uncertain, though it is Monson’s understanding that Cook intends to pursue it.

Looking to this regular season, which officially begins for the Eagles in that game at UCLA, the Eagles will do their best to compensate for Cook’s absence.

“You don’t try to replace him. That’s impossible,” Monson said. “He had a unique game, and he was a guy who could go get his own shot at the end. He had a lot of experience. It’s going to have to be a committee, several guys.”

Against Carroll College, the Eagles started one returning player, redshirt sophomore Emmett Marquardt. Joining him in the starting lineup was a quartet of transfers who are either graduates or seniors: forward Kiree Huie (previously at Miami and Idaho State), guard Straton Rogers (College of Idaho), guard Isaiah Moses (UC Riverside and College of Southern Idaho) and guard Jojo Anderson (Idaho and Whitworth).