Eastern Washington, Northern Colorado put win streaks on the line in crucial late-season matchup
No other player on the Eastern Washington men’s basketball team has been around the Big Sky Conference as long as Emmett Marquardt.
Marquardt sat on the bench as a redshirt in 2023-24 and then started every game for the Eagles last season, which means he’s seen or played against Northern Colorado – Eastern’s opponent at 6 p.m. Thursday at Reese Court in Cheney – more than any of his teammates.
And to Marquardt, there’s a simple reason for the Bears’ recent success: continuity. He points to Brock Wisne and Zach Bloch, two seniors who have played all of their college basketball at Northern Colorado.
“I know it factors into their success,” the redshirt sophomore said Tuesday. “When you have guys like that who have been in a system like (coach Steve) Smiley’s, where you’re just reading what the defense is doing, the best way to get good at that is chemistry on the court.”
Their veteran presence, Marquardt said, is one reason why the Bears are peaking at precisely the right time – just as the Eagles are.
“They whip the ball around, they share the ball, the ball never sticks, and they have guys who can create offensively, not just by dribbling down but with simple basketball plays: back cuts, pick and rolls,” he said. “They play a really unselfish brand of basketball.”
Eastern hasn’t had the same continuity that Northern Colorado is enjoying, and the Eagles certainly had their struggles as they developed relationships between all the team’s new players. Smiley is in his sixth year as the Bears’ head coach, and in each of the last two seasons his team has earned a top-two seed in the Big Sky Tournament.
“Chemistry is a real thing that cannot be replicated,” Marquardt said. “You cannot just put pieces together and have it work out (immediately).”
But Marquardt also said the Eagles haven’t broken, and now here they are: riding a six-game winning streak and sitting in a second-place tie in the Big Sky with three regular -season games left. All three of them the Eagles (11-17, 9-6 Big Sky) will play at home.
The last time the Eagles lost was on Jan. 31, in Greeley, Colorado, 74-71 to the Bears. And the Bears – winners of seven straight – haven’t lost since then, either. They are now 18-10 overall and 8-7 in the Big Sky, part of a five-team logjam between second and sixth place in the standings.
“We learned that we just had to play together as a team,” EWU grad senior Kiree Huie said of that road trip to Northern Colorado and Northern Arizona. “That was a bad trip, coming out with two losses against two teams at the bottom of the conference. But we learned that we had to play better, buy into what coach (Dan Monson) was saying and trust one another.”
Through 15 conference games, Eastern ranks in the league’s top five in nearly every category, including the No. 1 spot in 3-point percentage (39%) and 3-point defense (30.4%).
Statistically, the Bears are among the league’s best teams as well . Their rebounding margin of plus 4.2 is the league’s highest and they have the veteran trio of Wisne, Block and Quinn Denker.
Denker in particular has been a force. The grad senior who played previously at Cal State San Marcos and then at Idaho is the seventh-leading scorer during Big Sky play this season at 18.2 points per game. He also ranks eighth in rebounding (6.1 per game) and first in assists (7.9).
“He has a great all-around game, and he has a motor to rebound, a motor to find the open guy,” Huie said of Denker. “And he can score when he has to.”
Teamed up with Wisne (17.3 points and 6.8 rebounds per game) and Bloch (11.3 points per game, 37.4% from 3), Denker and the Bears have a formidable top three – even if it took them half the Big Sky schedule to find their top gear.
“I think we all knew they would be a competitive team, and they struggled early,” Huie said. “But they hit their stride at the right time.”