Thomas McCarthy's father was a member of the last EOU squad to beat OIT in 1979.
LA GRANDE, Ore. – Sly and the Family Stone owned the top spot on Billboard Hot 100, Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler topped the Country music chart, and there was a limited release of Robert De Niro’s The Deer Hunter in some select movie theaters.
What else happened on that Friday, Feb. 16, 1979? Eastern Oregon State College held off the Oregon Institute of Technology, 80-73, in double overtime in Klamath Falls, Ore. That was the last time the Mountaineer men’s basketball team beat OIT in its own gym. EOU has not won at Oregon Tech since Jimmy Carter was President and since J.J. was “dynamite” on the TV show, Good Times.
Saturday, the No. 8 Eastern men will have its next chance – maybe its best chance since 31 years ago. The Mountaineers enter Danny Miles Court with a higher ranking than Oregon Tech for the first time ever, and are off to a great start to the 2010-11 season sitting atop the Cascade Collegiate Conference standings at 10-1 overall and 2-0 in league play.
Current Eastern Oregon player, Thomas McCarthy, will have possibly his final shot to win at OIT (10-2) (2-0), depending on the end of the regular season results, if Tech is a higher seed than EOU in the CCC postseason tournament. The senior has a unique connection to the recent rivalry. Tom’s father, Kevin, played for that last Mountaineer team to win in Klamath Falls.
“It was only my second game as a Mountaineer after sitting out 16 weeks because I had transferred from Oregon State,” Kevin said. “OIT was supposed to be pretty good that year and their crowd was big, loud and the student body was wild.
“I was your typical two guard with a scorers’ mentality who never saw a shot I didn't like, and since we played an up tempo game I loved to dunk any chance I got. Probably the similarity between Thomas' game and mine is he never saw a shot he didn't like and he always believes the next one will go in. That might be in the gene pool.”
Current Oregon Tech head coach, Danny Miles, was in his ninth year when EOU won in Klamath Falls in 1979. Entering that season, Miles had a record of 132-63. Almost 800 victories later, and now in his 40th season at OIT, he has become the dean of not only Cascade Conference coaches, but maybe NAIA coaches altogether. Miles passed coaching legend Bobby Knight last season for third place on the all-time wins list.
“We have a great deal of respect for the kind of program that has been established at Eastern,” Miles said. “Ryan (Looney) got it to the elite level and Isaac (Williams) has continued it with solid young men who represent the school and community extremely well. The past five years it has been an honor to represent the conference with EOU in Branson.”
Oregon Tech finished the 1978-79 season with 24 wins and six losses, the Mountaineers finished 14-11. From that season to 2005, a 27 year span, EOU would have five winning seasons. In fact Eastern had 13 seasons where it did not crack 10 wins during that time span. To show the turnaround the Mountaineer men have made over the recent years, EOU won 262 games from 1978 to 2004, and 124 in the past five years.
Eastern Oregon has had four 20-win seasons in a row the past four years, a far cry from when current Mountaineers’ head coach Isaac Williams played at EOU from 1996 to 1998.
“I think our athletic department as a whole has come a long way,” Williams said. “Having played here when we were near the bottom of the conference to now when EOU is talked about nationally is great to be a part of the progress. My senior year one of my most memorable games was beating Oregon Tech in La Grande at the buzzer by a half-court shot from Mitch Despanie. We were down by 20 points in the second half.”
The Mountaineers and Oregon Tech have finished in the top two of the CCC standings the past three seasons. Eastern won the conference title in 2007-08, the teams shared the 2008-09 league crown, and OIT won last year’s conference championship. The 158th meeting between Tech and Eastern Oregon Saturday will feature a pair of top 25 teams for only the eighth time. The No. 13 Hustlin' Owls have won 93 of the 157 games. EOU has won the last five meetings in La Grande.
Before the Mountaineers found success in Quinn Coliseum against Tech, the Owls won 21 straight over EOU. The pair of Cascade Conference powers has won more games since 2006-07 than any other teams in the conference. OIT has won 84 percent of its games and Eastern Oregon has won 77 percent of its games. Both teams are 48-12 in CCC play over the same time span. Only five schools have made the Sweet 16 in the NAIA Div. 2 National Tournament consecutively for the past three seasons, and EOU and Tech are two of the five.
Last season, Eastern nearly ended the streak. In the NAIA Game of the Week, the No. 18 Mountaineers trailed 50-30 with 16:03 remaining in regulation. EOU stormed back to cut the lead to 68-67 with 1:14 left in the game. Some Eastern Oregon misses and Tech successful free throws would give OIT a 72-67 win. The year before featured a top five showdown, as No. 1 Oregon Tech used a big second half to beat No. 5 Eastern Oregon, after trailing for much of the first half.
Saturday’s clash features the top two teams in NAIA Div. 2 in three-point field goal percentage. Eastern has won its games this season by a margin of 22.1 points, and the Owls have won by an average margin of 22.0 points. Both teams have won four straight games, and Tech currently has a 43-game win streak at home, the longest in the nation. Joseph Foster, the conference preseason player of the year, averages 24.1 points per game which is top in the CCC. He has made 38 three-pointers this season, also top in the conference.
Thomas McCarthy is right behind with 34 made three-pointers, second best in the Cascade Conference. The upcoming clash between EOU and Oregon Tech may be won behind the perimeter, and McCarthy knows he could play a big factor in Saturday’s top 15 battle.
“I expect a hard fought game,” Thomas said. “They are the toughest team to play at home in my opinion. Their gym is pretty cool to play in. Their fans are intense. Saturday’s game will feel like a high profile game with our records and rankings. It would mean a lot to end the streak. Not only our streak of not winning there, but end their home win streak. To have my Dad beat them in his senior season and then I beat them in my senior season would be pretty cool.”