The EWU men’s basketball practices are underway and the expectations this year are above the rim.

“Win the Big Sky and go to March Madness” are the expectations for the 2014-2015 EWU men’s basketball team according to junior guard and captain Tyler Harvey.

Harvey, who led the team in scoring with 21.8 points per game, looks to translate his offseason work and leadership into season success.

“I just worked hard. I try to work hard every offseason. Continue to get shots up, try to be more of a vocal leader on the team, getting the new guys incorporated in our team and basically just working hard,” Harvey said.

Jim Hayford, in his fourth year as head coach, looks to this team to take Eastern men’s basketball to the next step in the program and compete in the Big Sky Conference.

According to Hayford, the experiences and maturity of the now upperclassmen and the new additions to the team should take them to the level of their potential.

“We have a real focus that we want to take the program to the next level, whatever that takes. So, I love the focus of our guys and I think having great expectations is the way you should live life,” said Hayford.

Individual growth with each player and team rebounding and defense was the main focus of Hayford and his coaching staff during the offseason.

“If each guy could improve their game 10 to 20 percent, that will probably be enough to get us from 15 to 20 wins,” Hayford said. “And secondly, we want to be a better defensive and rebounding team. We’ve really worked on our team defense and our commitment to be great rebounders.”

Junior forward and captain Venky Jois used the offseason to do exactly what his coach wanted. He developed a new game to adjust to the new guys on the team and to improve his skills.

“It was fantastic,” he said. “For me personally, I tried to build myself kind of ground up. Trying to get back into ball handling, moves and increase, not just beating my guys off speed, off strength, but to getting anywhere on the floor easier. After all the ball handling work, I think I’ve definitely improved in the shooting.”

The Eagles finished last season with a 15-16 record and 10-10 record in the Big Sky Conference. Jois said there is no reason why this group cannot be better than last year. Their expectations are not just to win games, but to really beat teams.

“[Expectations are] huge, definitely huge,” Jois said. “I think with the new personnel and old guys are obviously getting better, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t just be better with the guys we have but with the new guys we should be a lot better.”

With just a few days of practices in the books, Harvey said the energy amongst the team already being great.

“The first three practices we had were really, really good competition, going hard against each other five on five and we’re bringing the energy everyday. So, it’s good to compete against these guys,” he said.

According to collegemadness.com, both Harvey and Jois were selected to be part of the College Sports Madness Big Sky Preseason All-Conference Men’s Basketball team. Harvey joined Northern Arizona’s guard Quinton Upshur on first team all-conference, and Jois was selected to be on the second team.

Hayford recognized his captains for not only being leaders but also hanging in there during the rebuilding of the men’s program.

“Tyler [Harvey], Venky [Jois] and Parker [Kelly] are all great captains and they’ve been here and they’ve paid the hard price of building the program. I think that they’re all excellent leaders,” he said.

The Eagles’ road to March Madness starts at home on Nov. 14 versus Texas Southern University.