The Eagles won only 11 games this season, the first for head coach Kirk Earlywine.

But the Eagles' effort was always there, as evidenced by a 76-74 loss at league champion Portland State in the season finale certainly proved. The future seems bright.

With a nine-player team that included six players who had never played a NCAA Division I game, Eastern finished seventh in the league. The Eagles had been picked to finish eighth by the coaches and ninth by the media.

Eastern couldn't win the close ones. The Eagles lost three league games at home by margins of four, seven and two (average margin of 4.3). Six of EWU's league setbacks came by five points or less. Eastern's 10 league losses were by an average of 6.8 points per game, and just 6.6 if an 80-61 loss at Montana is eliminated.

"We didn't end up with the results we wanted this year in terms of the number of wins, but it was successful in some regards," Earlywine said. "Hopefully next year we can turn the tide and be successful in the win-loss column as well."

Portland State entered the regular-season finale vs. Eastern coming off a pair of overwhelming road victories in Montana -- 96-68 over Montana State and 108-56 against Montana. Both of those schools advanced to the conference tourney. But Eastern Washington nearly pulled off a major upset.

"I thought this first year it was important that we establish a mindset of how we would play, a level of toughness and a level of competitiveness," Earlywine said. "I think we did that. The Portland State loss was a good example. It would have been very, very easy for us to mail that one in against a team that was on a roll. They were playing as well as any team in the recent history of the Big Sky, but we gave ourselves a chance to win in the last minute."

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