In a tightly-contested game, the EWU men’s basketball team lost to the first-place Portland State Vikings on Thursday, Jan. 22.
Portland State won 65-61. Senior forward Terri Miller Jr. made 22 of them. Miller leads the Big Sky conference with 19.6 points per game. He also had six rebounds and five assists.
Senior center Tre-Vaughn Minott also made a strong showing for Portland State during his few minutes on the court. Despite fouling out after playing 19 minutes, he made six of his seven shot attempts and scored 13 points while blocking two shots.
EWU’s top scorer was senior guard Isaiah Moses. He made two 3-pointers and 10 free throws en route to scoring 22 points. His 17.6 points per game rank third in the Big Sky.
Junior forward Alton Hamilton IV led the Eagles with six rebounds and scored the second-most points with 13. He is within the top three on the Eagles this season in points, rebounds, assists and 3-point percentage.
After senior guard Jaylin Henderson made a layup, the Vikings led by 10 with less than 11 minutes left in the game. However, back-to-back layups from the Eagles’ senior forward Kiree Huie cut the lead to 50-44.
Neither team scored for almost three minutes, and Huie ended the drought with another layup. Moses made two free throws, and Hamilton made a layup to tie the game at 50 with five minutes left.
The teams traded scores until the Vikings took a four-point lead with 1:47 remaining after Miller Jr. converted an and-one. Hamilton IV made two free throws to make it a 2-point game, but Miller Jr. matched him with two free throws on Portland State’s next possession.
Moses made the score 61-59 with a midrange jump shot, and Miller Jr. responded with a layup to extend the Vikings’ lead to four points with 20 seconds left. After Huie scored a layup, the Eagles trailed 63-61 with 11 seconds left.
The Eagles full-court pressed the Vikings to try to force a turnover. But with four seconds left, Miller Jr. threw a full-court pass to junior guard Keyon Kensie, who clinched the Portland State victory with a dunk.
After the loss, the Eagles are now 5-14 this season and 2-4 in Big Sky conference games. This week, the team will travel to play Northern Arizona on Thursday and Northern Colorado on Saturday. Upcoming games can be streamed on ESPN.
