The Northern Arizona Lumberjacks and the Eastern Washington Eagles meet in a Big Sky conference tournament quarter-final matchup in college basketball action from the Idaho Central Arena on Thursday night.
The Northern Arizona Lumberjacks booked their spot in the quarters with a 77-66 upset win over Portland State in the first round. Luke Avdalovic led the Lumberjacks in scoring with 26 points coming on 9 of 15 shooting with 7 threes while Keith Haymon added 13 points on 5 of 8 shooting with 3 threes. Ajang Aguek chipped in 11 points on 4 of 4 shooting from the field with 5 rebounds to cap off the trio of double-digit scorers for the Lumberjacks in the winning effort while Cameron Shelton has 8 points with a team-high 6 assists and a pair of steals. Isaiah Lewis also grabbed a team-high 6 rebounds as well in the winning effort.
The Eastern Washington Eagles come into the conference tournament as the #2 seed after finishing with a 12-3 conference record as part of their 13-7 overall mark this season. Tanner Groves leads the Eagles in scoring with 16.5 PPG along with 7.9 RPG while Kim Aiken Jr. has 12 PPG and a team-high 8.4 RPG to lead the Eagles on the glass this season. Tyler Robertson has 11.5 PPG with 3.7 RPG and a team-high 2.9 RPG to lead EWU in assists and Jacob Davison has 11 PPG while Michael Meadows has 10.9 PPG to cap off the trio of double-digit scorers for Eastern Washington on the year. As a team, Eastern Washington is averaging 79.3 PPG on 46.7% shooting from the field and 36.1% from three while allowing 71.6 PPG on 41.9% shooting from the field and 32.5% from three this season.
Northern Arizona is 3-8 ATS in their last 11 games following a win and 1-4-1 ATS in their last 6 games against a team with a winning percentage above .600 while the under is 6-1-1 in their last 8 games against a team with a winning record. Eastern Wasahington is 6-1 ATS in their last 7 games overall and 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games against a team with a losing record while the over is 7-1 in their last 8 games following a win. The favorite is 10-4 ATS in the last 14 meetings between these two teams.
This feels like a ton of points to give up with Eastern Washington considering how good the Lumberjacks looked against the Vikings. However, Northern Arizona had back-to-back wins just once this season and those came against an Idaho team that won just one game this season. I just think Eastern Washington’s the better team here and it’s not really close. Give me Eastern Washington and lay the points here.