Eastern Washington's Men's Basketball Preview - DustinT's Blog

DustinT's Blog

Eastern Washington's Men's Basketball Preview

Posted on November 9, 2009 at 03:05 PM.

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With the start of the men�s college basketball season right around the corner, the Eastern Eagles are hoping for a more successful season.

After failing to make the Big Sky tournament for the third year in a row, Eastern set out to improve their athleticism and their shooting. They did just that welcoming six newcomers to the squad, who just might be Coach Kirk Earlywine�s best recruiting class ever.

"We needed to become more athletic, we needed to add size and we needed shooting ability on the perimeter. We thought if we could get all three of those it would be a home run. We accomplished two of those three goals for sure. �

�I don't know is if we improved our perimeter shooting enough,� Earlywine added. However, one of the newcomers might be able to improve the teams shooting. �[Freshman] Kevin Winford is without any question the best shooter on our team. He shoots the ball well from the arc,� Earlywine said.

Along with Winford, transfer Laron Griffin is expected to make a huge impact for the Eagles. �Griffin is 6�8 with very long arms and has a knack for rebounding and blocking shots. He affects the game in the paint with his athletic ability and his length, and is a nice compliment to the physical strength and width we have with the other three big guys. it�s a nice mixture for us.

�I believe that were better, I don�t know what that translates to in number of wins. We�re definitely better. We�re significantly quicker and faster more athletic on the perimeter than we were a year ago. Our big guys are a year older, and that added year of experience is critical,� said Earlywine.

Eastern is returning five seniors, two which were the team�s leading scorers a year ago in Benny Valentine and Brandon Moore. Consistency will be key for the two. Both are capable of scoring in double figures, and it showed in 44 games last season, but are also very capable of scoring less then eight points, which happened on fourteen occasions "There is more responsibility that comes with being one of the guys who takes the most shots and is perceived to be one of the team's best players. When you are in that role it increases the responsibility that is thrust upon you,� said Earlywine.

Moore will have plenty of help under the basket this season. Along with Griffin, Eastern is returning senior role players Matt Brunell and Mark Dunn. "I couldn't have been more happy with what Matt and Mark brought to the table last season," said Earlywine. "For the first 20 games, Mark was better than I thought he would be, but I played him probably too many minutes and he wore down. I think we can get the same production from him even with shorter minutes this season."

"Matt became what I thought was the best team defender in the Big Sky Conference by the end of the year last season," Earlywine said. "He might not have been able to take a player out of a game individually, but as a team defender he was as spectacular and as good as I've coached. His awareness, his alertness away from the ball and his ability to cover mistakes by his teammates was outstanding. I would like him to be more of a threat offensively and a player the other team has to worry about a little more on the offensive end of the floor."

The fifth and final returning senior, Gary Gibbs, will be helping out Valentine in the back court. "It's been a two-year process to get Gary to talk and communicate more, not only on the floor, but while he's on the sideline and in practice. He has to be more vocal in terms of helping the other players, especially on the defensive end of the floor. Gary is a very smart player and recognizes things very quickly. But he keeps it to himself, and that's not a good habit for a guard."

When asked what the Eagles needed to improve on to have a winning record this season, Coach Earlywine had a simple answer - scoring. �We have to be more efferent offensively than we were a year ago. We were next to last in Big Sky in field goal percentage and three-point shooting percentage.�

Eastern won their two exhibition games this season, beating Saint Martins and Montana State-Billings. Their next game, and first of the season, will be this Saturday against the Portland Pilots at 1:05 in Reese Court.

"Last year was disappointing because we thought we were going to make that jump," said Earlywine. "To take the step from being a bad team to being a competitive team is easy compared to taking the next step of going from being competitive to winning. That is much tougher. For us to take that step, we need our seniors to have a good year. If they have good senior seasons, we have a chance to be right where we all want to be that first week of March.�

�I think this years team can be very very good.�