Eastern Oregon Overcomes Sluggish Start to Defeat Bearcats
CALDWELL, Idaho, - Down 27-11 to Willamette University to start Saturday nights game, The Eastern Oregon Men's Basketball (6-1) team had to change it's game plan.
The 18th ranked Mounties decided to abandon its normal spread the ball around attack and put the ball in Kyle Janke's hands. The senior big man responded by scoring a career high 27 points on 11-13 shooting, in EOU' s 95-88 come from behind win over The Bearcats (1-1).
Because of the way WU was defending the Mountie offense, Janke became the first option in the Eastern attack. He certainly was not the only option. Fellow senior Mark Carollo turned in his best performance to the season, scoring a game high 30 points on 10-16 shooting from the field, including 4-5 from the 3 point line. The 6'5 wing also pulled down 7 rebounds, dished out 3 assists and added a couple of steals.
Willamette was led by Forward Kyler McClary's 22 points and 7 rebounds. Mike Smith added 15 while freshman Point Guard Robbie Kunkie had 13 points and 7 assists.
After the slow start offensively, EOU wound up shooting 51% from the field and almost 53% from downtown, connecting on 9 of 17 three pointers. Willamette also had no problem finding the basket, shooting 54% for the game.
Eastern once again won the battle of the boards 34-28, 12 of those were offensive. Through seven games the Mountaineers have 35 more offensive rebounds than their opponents.
The Mounties will have some time off before returning to action on November 30th and December 1st when they host Southern Oregon and #11 Oregon Tech. The two games will kick off the Cascade Conference regular season. Both contests are scheduled to start at 7:30pm.