BOISE, Idaho – Moving courtside after four straight days of sitting in the rafters at Idaho Central Arena gives a new perspective to the action on the court, flattening out the angle, turning up the speed of the game and changing players from pieces on a two-dimensional chessboard into vital, vibrant athletes, sprinting, leaping and twisting in beautiful three-dimensional space. Less analysis, more vibes.
There were plenty of those to be had in Wednesday’s Big Sky title matchup between Northern Arizona and Eastern Washington.
The Lumberjacks, in head coach Loree Payne’s seventh season, have fully coalesced around her preferred fast-breaking, quick-shooting strategy, a relentless seven-seconds-or-less style fully transplanted from the valley to the mountains 12 years after Steve Nash left Phoenix.
On Tuesday, they outlasted a down-to-run Montana team, burying the Lady Griz late in a game whose lasting image was NAU point guard Grace Beasley floating increasingly audacious half-court passes to Leia Beattie running go routes like Randy Moss.
On Wednesday, NAU carried that energy right into the title game, with Beasley pushing the pace again and getting her own offense – six points by herself in the first quarter, already two-thirds to her season average. When Beattie followed in on a missed layup by Emily Rodabaugh to tap it home at the first-quarter buzzer, the Lumberjacks led 22-12.
Eastern Washington can play fast too, although it’s not the Eagles’ default option. All season long, Joddie Gleason has trusted her point guard Jamie Loera, the Big Sky’s regular-season MVP, to toggle the pace up and down, to find the right pass and to feed the hot hand – in short, to read the game and then do whatever it demands.
Against ninth-seeded Weber State on Sunday, the Eagles trailed by nine midway through the third quarter before Loera seized control of the game and crushed the Wildcats, getting to the rim and floating cross court passes to shooters.
On Wednesday, Northern Arizona’s hot start made it increasingly clear that what the game required of Eastern Washington was pure, unadulterated effort. This is the Eagles’ truest mode, energy-drink basketball – hounding people on defense (Loera was also the Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year) and running offense that often seems designed just to get a shot up on the backboard so they can create a scrum for the rebound.
On Wednesday, they closed Northern Arizona’s big lead to one point at halftime, had it tied at the end of the third quarter and pulled away steadily in the fourth for a 73-64 win, forcing 20 turnovers and grabbing 15 offensive rebounds in all.
“Effort is probably like, one thing that you can control,” said Jacinta Buckley, who finished with 20 points and 11 rebounds for EWU. “Last night, we did a meditation talk with our strength coach, and each of us kind of talked about how effort was the one thing that we didn’t want to regret going into this game. So we all just bought in to giving 100% of what we had, whether that was on the bench cheering or, you know, diving for loose balls.”
Northern Arizona, hobbled by the loss of Olivia Moran to an undisclosed illness, played just seven players and couldn’t keep up the pace.
“Obviously, we only went seven deep, and we have players playing a lot more minutes than they’re used to playing in. And so I think we just ran out of gas a little bit,” Payne said. “We had a great rotation going where we had some depth in our lineup and our rotations. And sometimes there’s just things out of your control, you know, and you have to go up and you have to make adjustments and be flexible with that.”
The result was a third-straight title-game loss for Payne and, on the other side, a joyful press conference as the Eagles celebrated their first NCAA Tournament berth since 1987.
Loera, net cord knotted in the back of her commemorative hat, shimmied side-to-side with excitement, while Buckley smiled through tears.
“This is so awesome,” Buckley said. “What did you say, 1997? 1987? That’s older than my sister. So we’re just going to enjoy the moment.”
Gleason has built the Eagles up in just three years, going from 9-21 in her first season at EWU to 19-11 in her second and now a double conference championship and the NCAA Tournament. EWU’s 29 wins are a school record by a full eight games and the Eagles have a NET ranking of 78 entering the NCAA Tournament.
Buckley and Milly Knowles were sophomores on that 9-21 team. Jaydia Martin, Jaleesa Lawrence, Aaliyah Alexander and Alexis Pettis were freshmen. Loera transferred in from Arizona State the next year, joining her sister Jordan, who was already on the Eagles’ coaching staff.
Now, that group is headed to the NCAA Tournament.
“I can’t even explain it,” Jamie Loera said. “It’s something that we’ve dreamed of our whole life. And I’m just so happy to share this moment with my teammates, embrace these moments. I’m so proud of this team, just the work that we put in knowing where we were a year ago to where we are now.”
