EWU men look to bounce back after Dan Monson’s young team was roughed up a season ago

Last year’s Eastern Washington men’s basketball team was young, with four first- or second-year players shouldering significant minutes.

It wasn’t ideal.

“We were one of the youngest basketball teams in the country last year, and it didn’t work well,” EWU second-year head coach Dan Monson said. “The modern era of it is, you get a 23-year-old man playing an 18-year-old freshman, and it’s a big advantage, and last year we took our lumps.”

But during his first full offseason in the program, Monson and his staff overhauled the roster again, bringing in six transfers and two true freshmen. And what was once a young roster is now a veteran one.

It’s enough to give Emmett Marquardt, the only player entering his third year with the program, a little whiplash.

“It feels weird because I’m 20 years old and I’m telling guys what to do and they’re 24,” the redshirt sophomore forward said. “But they respect me. I respect them.”

The design is that a more veteran team will lead to more victories. Last year, the Eagles went 10-22 overall and 6-12 in the Big Sky Conference.

“Our culture this year, they’re all bought in,” said redshirt senior Tyler Powell, one of the team’s seven returners. “All bought in to winning, to working hard, to doing the little things that matter.”

Among the newcomers is 6-foot-9 forward Kiree Huie. Now a grad senior, Huie spent last season at Miami, where a hand injury limited him to 14 games.

But the year before, Huie was a force at Idaho State, starting 32 games and averaging 11.3 points and 5.8 rebounds. That included an 18-point output at Reese Court against the Eagles when Huie made 8 of 11 shots.

“I watched him kill us with that left hand over and over and over again,” Marquardt said. “We did our job as a team getting him here, and now we love having him.”

The Eagles also added redshirt senior point guard Isaiah Moses, who started 19 games at UC Riverside last season and was second on the team with 102 assists. He will help the Eagles replace guards Mason Williams and Nic McClain, both of whom transferred.

“He’s a true point guard who can score,” Monson said of Moses. “He can facilitate, and he’s experienced.”

Also on the roster now are grad seniors Straton Rogers and Johnny Radford, a pair of guards from the College of Idaho who will give the Eagles depth and versatility. In four seasons at the College of Idaho, Rogers played in 123 games and averaged 6.2 points and 6.2 rebounds; Radford played in 122 and averaged 10.5 points while making 88.1% of his free throws.

They also brought in junior forward Alton Hamilton IV (Lewis-Clark State College) and redshirt senior guard Jojo Anderson, who played previously at Idaho and at Whitworth. True freshmen Cole Scherer, a guard, and Allan Gballou, a forward, round out the newcomers.

All of those players, as well as returners Angelo Winkel, Elijah Thomas, Maddox Monson and Shaumba Ngoyi, will look to backfill the production of redshirt senior guard Andrew Cook. One of the top returning players in the Big Sky, Cook suffered an ankle injury in practice and will miss the season.

“It’s brutal,” Marquardt said. “I don’t think anybody can prepare for a situation like that.”

Still, the Eagles will carry on as they look to win a Big Sky regular-season title, something they did in 2023 and in 2024.

“We have the right guys,” Powell said, “and the right pieces.”