BYU basketball: Cougars expect stiff test from Eastern Washington

PROVO — Even though Eastern Washington comes into the Marriott Center Saturday night with a sub-par record, the BYU Cougars are expecting perhaps their toughest home game of the season so far.

First, the Eagles, with a three-guard, two-post offense, present a lot of matchup problems for the Cougars. They start two quick and speedy 5-foot-10 guards, Glen Dean and Jeffery Forbes, 6-foot-3 shooting guard Alden Gibbs, and two strong frontline players in 6-foot-8 Mark Dunn and 6-foot-9 Brandon Moore. The two post starters combine to average 26 points per game.

The Cougars, in whipping Wagner 77-61 on Thursday in the first round of the HoopsTV Las Vegas Classic, had one of their stronger inside games of the year. However, that might be difficult to duplicate against the Eagles.

"The game on Saturday will be a little bit tougher," BYU coach Dave Rose said. "They're bigger guys inside so we'll see how that works, because (going inside) is what we want to do."

Also, Eastern Washington, despite its 4-6 mark, has given every team it has faced all it could handle. The Eagles, in their first-round Las Vegas Classic game on Thursday, lost to Nevada 73-70 on a 3-pointer with four seconds remaining. Before that, they beat Seattle University in overtime, the same team that beat both Utah and Weber State on the road.

"We expect each game to get tougher as we move through this tournament," Rose said.

Perhaps BYU's biggest obstacle will be dealing with the distractions the Cougars have had this week with finals and the Christmas for Children with Cancer party on Wednesday night. They didn't practice on Monday, had short practices on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, and every player on the team had a final on Friday.

"There's not much you can do about it right now. You just have to get back into playing," Rose said.

The players, however, feel that come tonight they'll have nothing but basketball on their minds, and that might translate into a little more energy to expend on the court.

"We'll be done with finals, we'll be done with school, and we won't have to worry about that for two and a half weeks," senior Jonathan Tavernari said. "It's the greatest feeling in the world to just be able to play basketball and not worry about anything else."

Two things the Cougars will have to worry about, however, are rebounding and making free throws. They gave up 19 offensive boards to Wagner on Thursday. Many of those were long bounces off the Seahawks' 19 missed 3-point shots, but not all of them.