How does a team with only 1 NCAA Tournament appearance coming off a season in which they finished 15-16 make enough of an impression to get mentioned here as a potential Cinderella? It started when they traveled to Bloomington and beat the Hoosiers in Assembly Hall. That's an Indiana team, by the way, who is more than likely going dancing this season. EWU has been on our watch list since that game and hasn't really done anything since to take themselves off it.
Indiana is the best win on the schedule, but they also really only have one bad loss - at home against Portland St. The other losses are SMU, Washington, Sam Houston St., Cal, Sacramento St., Northern Arizona, and Montana. They have been playing well recently. They haven't lost a game by more than 4 points since mid-January. They have lost 3 games in that time, though. Still, they did enough to secure the 2 seed in the Big Sky Tournament and have won 3 of 4 heading into it.
The key to success for this team is scoring points. They shoot 47.6% from the field, and they are 6th in the country in points per game scoring 80.5 per contest. Compare that to their point total in their 8 losses, and you can easily see just how important offense is to this team. In their 8 losses, EWU averages just 69 points per game, a full 11.5 points fewer than their season average. Even so, they have been "on" more than they have been "off" this season, and Ken Pomeroy says they have the 50th best Adjusted Offensive Efficiency rating in the country.
They are led by Sophomore guard Tyler Harvey who averages 22.9 points per game. Just for good measure, Harvey also contributes 3.8 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game. The real catalyst for this team, though, is Senior Drew Brandon, who does a lot of things well for the Eagles. He leads the team in both rebounding and assists averaging 7.3 and 4.9 per game respectively. He also throws in 9.7 points per game and 1.8 steals per game. They aren't a particularly deep team, though. Eight players average at least 10 minutes, but the bulk of the minutes go to the 5 players who play at least 24 minutes or more a game. Those 5 account for 85% of the Eagles scoring offense.
The Big Sky Tournament is no lock for the Eagles. They will face stiff competition from Sacramento St., Montana, Northern Arizona and others. But if EWU can get through that gauntlet and make the NCAA Tournament, they have the talent and offensive fire-power to make some noise. They lost their only NCAA Tournament in school history in 2004, but they will be looking to write a new page of history if they get a bid this season.
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