‘I think we’ve surpassed expectations’: Eastern Washington women on the rise as conference play begins

Joddie Gleason recognized that turning around the Eastern Washington women’s basketball program wasn’t going to be done overnight.

Year One would be about instilling the culture she and the new staff wanted. The goal in Year Two would be to finish somewhere in the middle of the Big Sky Conference standings. Then, Year Three would be about competing for the team’s first conference championship since 2010.

But through 10 games this season, that schedule appears to have accelerated.

“I think we’ve surpassed our expectations so far,” Gleason said last week after the Eagles closed out their nonconference schedule with an 84-54 win over Utah State. “We’re trying to be in that top third now, and we think that we have a team that can represent Eastern really well and make a run.”

That run starts Thursday, when the Eagles (7-3) open Big Sky play against Montana (4-7) at 6 pm at Reese Court in Cheney.

“The Big Sky is balanced this year,” Gleason said. “I don’t think anybody’s going to run away with it.”

A year ago, Eastern finished 9-21 overall and 7-13 in the Big Sky, an improvement over the season before, the last of 20 years under previous coach Wendy Schuller, when the Eagles finished 6-17 and 5-12.

By the middle of conference play, the Eagles were figuring themselves out, Gleason said, and they won five of their last 10 games, including a first-round loss in the Big Sky Tournament.

“We had a bunch of freshmen playing a ton of minutes, and we stuck with them,” Gleason said. “They got so much experience. You can’t simulate getting in-game experience.”

Now that experience is paying off. The Eagles have averaged the third-most points in the Big Sky this season (70.5) and have allowed the fourth-fewest points per game at 61.2. Their average turnover margin of plus-6.20 is the best in the conference.

While they lack the star scorer that other conference teams have, the Eagles are balanced, with four players averaging more than nine points per game. Sophomore Jaydia Martin averages 13.8 points, seventh best in the Big Sky. Grad transfer Jamie Loera (11.1), junior Jacinta Buckley (10.1) and redshirt freshman Aaliyah Alexander (9.5) give the Eagles a wealth of capable scorers.

That quartet is also compelling in each members’ varied path to Cheney. Alexander is one of a handful of holdovers from Schuller; she was the team’s third-leading scorer in 2020-21 but missed all of Gleason’s first season with an injury.

Martin said she had few offers out of Hudson’s Bay High School in Vancouver, Washington, but she led the Eagles in scoring last year at 15.2 points per game and was named the Big Sky’s Freshman of the Year.

Buckley, now a redshirt junior, starred at Lewis and Clark High School before playing her first two seasons at UNLV, where she played in 52 games off the bench. But at Eastern, she’s been a regular starter and has seen her scoring average leap to double digits.

“We knew she wanted to come home … (and) luckily we were able to talk her into coming over here with us,” Gleason said of Buckley. “… She’s a great kid. Great teammate. She’s a phenomenal offensive weapon.”

Then there’s Loera, who assumed her playing career was over at the end of the 2020-21 season at Arizona State. She finished her degree there during the following school year, but then the itch to play returned.

“I just really missed basketball,” Loera said.

Loera grew up in Moses Lake with older sisters Jordan and Jessie. Jessie played at Gonzaga from 2016 to 2020; Jordan played at Oregon from 2011 to 2016, and when Gleason took over at Eastern she brought Jordan on as an assistant coach.

That cleared the path for Jamie Loera to play her last season of eligibility with the Eagles.

“With ASU, I had a great experience. I learned so much,” Jamie Loera said. “(Now) I’m here. Everything fell into place for me, and I just couldn’t be more happy to be here.”

Loera’s assist-to-turnover ratio (2.0) and her 28 steals rank first in the Big Sky. She’s also second on the team and 15th in the conference in rebounding (5.5 per game).

“Jamie’s level of IQ has really helped us out,” Martin said. “She’s crazy with the passes, and she definitely knows how to (change) the tempo when we need to. She’s a really good point guard in that sense.”

Aside from Loera, everyone else on the roster is a freshman, sophomore or junior. Martin said she sees how the team’s chemistry is only going to improve in the coming years.

But when a spot in the NCAA Tournament hinges on winning the conference tournament, the Eagles want to be at their best in March (in 2010, the Eagles won the regular-season title but lost their opener in the Big Sky Tournament and settled for a spot in the WNIT)

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“I think everybody on this team is for each other and eager to get better for each other,” Loera said. “We talk about having a growth mindset, thinking about the process, and just knowing that whatever we do in the moment at each and every practice, we’re (aiming for that) end goal, which is a Big Sky championship.”