SWX Right Now-Sports News for Washington and IdahoEagles earn first round bye in Big Sky tournament
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(Photo: EWU Athletics)With the potential of a championship game matchup between Eastern Washington University and perennial league power Montana, pairings are set for the Big Sky Conference Women's Basketball Tournament which will take place this Thursday through Saturday (March 11-13) at Reese Court in Cheney, Wash.
The tournament gets underway at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time on Thursday when No. 6 seed Montana State (16-13, 9-7 BSC) takes on third-seeded Sacramento State (15-14, 10-6 BSC). At 6 p.m., fifth-seeded Portland State (15-14, 9-7 BSC) takes on No. 4 seed Idaho State (15-14, 10-6 BSC).
In the opener Friday at 3:30 p.m., Montana (16-13, 9-7 BSC) will face the highest remaining seed from Thursday's round. Eastern Washington (19-10, 12-4 BSC), the tournament host and regular season Big Sky Conference champion, will play at 6 p.m. against the lowest remaining seed (Montana State if it wins, or the winner of the PSU vs. ISU game if Sac State is victorious).
Friday's winners play in the championship game at 2:05 p.m. Pacific time. Eastern was 2-0 this season against Montana State, but split the season series against the other four teams. The lone home loss in league play for the Eagles came against Sacramento State by a 78-69 score on Feb. 6, but EWU had defeated the Hornets in Sacramento 90-85 on Dec. 31.
"It is really special and we are very excited about the opportunity to host the conference tournament," said Eastern head coach Wendy Schuller, who directed EWU to its first-ever regular season title. "I think it is great for the community and Eastern Washington University. The 1987 team at Eastern won a conference championship and it has taken us a long time to get back to that point, so we are very excited about following in their footsteps many years later."
The 1987 Eastern team finished second behind Montana in the league standings (the Big Sky was then known as the Mountain West Athletic Conference), but knocked off the Grizzlies 77-74 in Missoula in the tournament championship game. That earned EWU its first and only women's berth to the NCAA Tournament, where it lost to Oregon 75-56.
But that 1987 loss in the title game was rare for the Grizzlies, who are 44-9 all-time in the tournament compared to an 8-14 record for the Eagles. In 28 years from 1983-2010, Montana has won or shared 20 regular season league championships, has hosted the tournament 19 times and has won 18 tourney titles while finishing as the runner-up on four occasions.
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