Eastern Utah men’s basketball team loses a close one at tournement to end season

This archived article was written by: Jeremy Jones

Each time the Eagles and the Bruins faced off this year, the game went right down to the wire. During the first round of the Scenic West Athletic Conference tournament, the Eagles and Bruins played for the fifth time and the outcome was just as exciting as all the others before.
Down by only two points, the Eagles had the ball, but were unable to get a bucket on three attempts and were knocked out of the tournament 64-62. Casey Iverson lead the Eagles with 14 points in the loss. Ahmet Tidiane lead the Bruins with 14 points and 14 rebounds to put SLCC through to the next round of the tournament.
The loss was one of many close defeats the Eagles suffered this season. Head coach Bryan Zollinger also acknowledged that the Eagles had been in many close games, but weren’t able to pull them out down the stretch. To be exact, the Eagles lost nine games by five points or less this season.
When asked about next season, coach Zollinger said, “We expect to have a good team. We have a lot of sophomores on the team this year. Right now, we only have two guys planning on coming back and it’s very early in the recruiting process to say right now what will happen.”
The two players that will be returning are guard Chris Lang and forward/center Anthony Labka. There is also a group of players who red-shirted this year that will probably see some time next season.
In other SWAC news, Salt Lake Community College went on to face Snow College in the next round. Snow won the game 78-72 and earned the right to play the College of Southern Idaho in the final.
CSI defeated North Idaho College 85-80 in the first round of the tournament, then beat Dixie 74-64 to advance to the final. CSI came out on top of Snow 80-74 to clinch the conference title and earn a trip to the national tournament that was held in Hutchinson, Kansas.
In the national tournament, CSI lost their first game to Chipola JC (FL) 66-61. In the loser’s bracket, CSI was knocked out of the tournament in their next game vrs. Eastern Wyoming 70-66.