A loss from three months ago still doesn’t sit quite right with Eastern Washington basketball coach Shantay Legans. And the lessons the Eagles learned from it might turn out to be useful as they try to knock Kansas out in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
The 3-point defeat at Arizona in the first week of December didn’t wreck the Eagles. But Legans blamed himself after Eastern Washington came up short down the stretch of what could’ve been a marquee victory.
In just their second game of the season, the Eagles led by 5 on the road against one of the Pac-12’s top programs. Even after the heavily favored Wildcats went up by 2 a few minutes into the second half, Eastern Washington recovered, building an 8-point lead with fewer than nine minutes left.
But soon after that, Legans said the Eagles began playing “too tight.” They were ahead by 5 with more than six minutes to play, and Legans said they got even more tense.
“We got really nervous, I felt like — the whole program,” Legans said. “Not just the players; the coaches, too. We wanted that win, and it’s human nature. I maybe pulled it a little bit too tight and didn’t just let them go out and be themselves like I have in the past.”
Typically, Eastern Washington (16-7) runs an offense based on concepts and spacing, but late in that game at Arizona, Legans said he began “trying to do too much” from the sideline, and called too many set plays.
In a two-minute span, the Eagles’ 5-point lead was gone. Though the game was tied with 3:34 to go, Arizona survived.
The Eagles’ leading scorer, Big Sky regular-season and tournament MVP Tanner Groves (16.4 points per game) agreed with his coach’s assessment of what went wrong.
“We hadn’t really been in that situation where we were playing a high-major team like Arizona, where we’re in the game and doing well,” Groves said. “And we were on the cusp of possibly winning that game.”
Eastern Washington’s season began with three road losses in a row, all to Pac-12 teams — 71-68 at Washington State, 70-67 at Arizona and 69-52 at Oregon.
At Washington State, Legans said the Eagles had to play with just six scholarship players and two walk-ons (the walk-ons never checked in). The Eagles did pretty well, Legans said.
The day after the Arizona road loss, the Eagles were at an airport and about to head home on Dec. 6 when they found out they would instead be flying out to Oregon — at the Ducks’ expense — to play a rescheduled game in Eugene, Ore., the following day.
Groves said going toe to toe with Arizona and playing three Pac-12 teams on the road to start the season proved beneficial.
“(It) helped prepare us for what we can expect from Kansas,” Groves said. “I just think the main thing is we just have to play our game. We have to execute all game long and we just have to defend.”
Among those three Pac-12 opponents, only Oregon (20-6 and a No. 7 seed) made the NCAA Tournament. Arizona (17-9) is ranked No. 44 by KenPom.com, and Washington State (14-13) is 106th, just four spots ahead of Eastern Washington, which is No. 110.
Legans said other Big Sky coaches have told him playing those high-major games won’t help him, but he doesn’t mind. He knows his players love getting those opportunities, and the game with Kansas is their next chance to shine.
“When the game starts, I don’t think they’ll be too worried about who they’re playing,” Legans said.
