Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Williams leads comeback win over Eastern
PULLMAN - Had he touched the ball yet all game?
WSU 7'1" center Volodymyr Markovetskyy, who went in during the second half -- hand-raised, arm out -- got no reply until Noah Williams fed him in the final minute for an emphatic dunk, giving the Cougars a game-breaking lead over Eastern Washington on a night WSU trailed for ¾ of it, winning 71-68.
Markovetskyy's score came just before EWU's Jacob Davison hit a three-pointer to cut the lead to one and Eastern got the ball back to work for a last shot with 10 seconds left.
Williams drew a charge on Eastern's Kim Aiken, Jr., with three seconds to go.
After two free throws from Isaac Bonton put the Cougars up by the final score, EWU had one last shot attempt, from inside half court; contact, no-call, game over.
"That was a gutsy win for us," said WSU coach Kyle Smith. "I thought that was a great college basketball game... I expected a rope-a-dope, but they came and played well, and I'm happy our guys hung in there."
Williams, a sophomore from Seattle's O'Dea High School, led WSU (2-0) with a career-high 19 points and eight rebounds. Tanner Groves had 17 points and nine rebounds for Eastern (0-1), while his brother Jacob Groves got 16 points and eight rebounds.
"They stepped up to the challenge but there's no moral victory," said Shantay Legans, EWU coach. "We want to win that game. We can play with them, and I think we can play with a lot of good teams."
The game began all EWU, which led 16-3 at one point before Washington State cut the margin to six at half.
In the second period, Cougars forward Brandton Chatfield, a redshirt freshman on the young team, hit a two-footer underneath for the game's first tie. Another possible tie at 48-48 was nullified by a goal-tending call against WSU – which was playing its 2020-21 home-opener last Saturday amidst no fans, piped-in background din and hip-hop over timeouts.
A dunk by Eastern's Jacob Groves brought an extra layer of recorded sound.
Groves, a sophomore forward from Shadle Park in Spokane, then hit a 10-foot turnaround jump shot to put the Eagles back up by four. WSU's Williams later downed a three-pointer from the top of the key to cut the lead to two with under five minutes remaining.
Groves tied it again at 63-63, followed by a Williams drive. Groves then stole a pass, but the Cougars evened the score and Williams made two free throws to put his team up four with 1:07 left.
A runner from Davison followed, cutting the WSU lead back to two before Williams slipped the ball to Markovetskyy for the exclamation point before the end. WSU had a four-point lead with 44 seconds left and held, taking the first game between the two schools since 2012.
After the buzzer, each team's players and coaches – who sat on three-row benches for social-distancing purposes – waved to each other from downcourt.
Eastern Washington played the game without five scholarship players, out due to COVID-19 protocols, including starting guard Ellis Magnuson.
The game was Jacob Groves' first start for the Eagles.
Markovetskyy, a sophomore, comes to Pullman from Truskavets, Ukraine.
WSU holds a 56-11 record all-time against Eastern, their last loss to the Eagles was in 1997.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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