Game Highlights and Postgame Comments

SAN FRANCISCO – USF ran into a hot-shooting Eastern Washington team tonight at War Memorial at The Sobrato Center and 14 three-pointers later the Eagles walked away with an 81-77 victory over the Dons.
 
The loss drops USF's record to 4-3 on the season while Eastern Washington improves to 4-3.
 
Devin Watson led USF in scoring with 25 points, Tim Derksen added 16 and Don't'e Reynolds recorded his first double-double of the season, finishing with 12 points and 11 rebounds. Uche Ofoegbu also chipped in seven points off the bench.
 
Felix Van Hofe's 20 points led a balanced Eagle scoring column. Austin McBroom made 5-of-9 three-pointers and finished with 19 points while Bogdan Bliznyuk added 17 and Venky Jois contributed 11. Van Hofe and McBroom accounted for nine of the Eagles 14 three-pointers on the night.
 USF shot 55.9 percent from the field and outrebounded EWU, 36-22. However, the Eagles dialed in 14-of-30 of their three-point tries compared to USF, which made just 3-of-15 shots from long distance.
 
The game followed a similar pattern as the Dons previous four games. USF fell behind by as many as 17 points midway through the first half and trailed 40-29 at intermission after the Eagles drained seven of their 14 3-pointers over the first 20 minutes.
 
The Dons faced a 16-point deficit with 10:02 left in the game and still trailed by 11 at 78-68 with 2:45 remaining after Bliznyuk made 1-of-2 free throws.
 
USF showed late life and used a 11-2 run to cut the lead to 80-77 with :50 remaining after Watson drained a long three-pointer. The Dons missed a chance to tie the game with :07 left when Mladen Djordjevic's three-pointer was off the mark.
 
A free throw by McBroom all but iced the game for the Eagles who came away with their second win on the Hilltop in as many years.
 
The Dons were also plagued by 17 turnovers which led to 25 Eagle points, but it was USF's inability to defend the three-point line that led to the four-point loss before a crowd of 1,484.
 
"Eastern Washington does a good job of surrounding a strong inside player in Venky Jois with really good shooters," said USF head coach Rex Walters. "The No. 1 key for us tonight was defending the three-pointer and obviously we didn't do a very good job with that. You can't give up 30 three-point attempts to this team. They got way too many open looks. Teams that have four guys who can shoot it usually give us problems."
 
The fact USF nearly overcame a sizeable deficit with a strong, desperate rush late in the game was not lost on Walters.
 
"Our guys have a lot of character and they are going to fight until the end, but we know we have to get off to a better start. I tell our guys playing hard isn't good enough. We have to be one entity and we are just a young, inexperienced team that doesn't have a lot of reps. That's not an excuse. At the end of the day, San Francisco lost by four points."
 
The Dons return to action Friday night when they meet the Montana Grizzlies at Dahlberg Arena in Missoula. Tip-off is set for 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time.