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Weber State guard Trevor Hennig (6) tries to shoot against Eastern Washington defenders Andrew Cook, left, and Pavlo Dziuba, right, on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, at the Dee Events Center in Ogden.

Robert Casey, WSU Athletics

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Weber State forward Nigel Burris, right, takes contact from Eastern Washington's Sebastian Hartmann on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, at the Dee Events Center in Ogden.

Robert Casey, WSU Athletics

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Weber State's Viljami Vartiainen (8) rises to shoot against Eastern Washington on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, at the Dee Events Center in Ogden.

Robert Casey, WSU Athletics

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Weber State guard Blaise Threatt (0) rises to shoot against Eastern Washington's Emmett Marquardt on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, at the Dee Events Center in Ogden.

Robert Casey, WSU Athletics

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Weber State center Declan Cutler, center, tries to pass after falling in the middle of Eastern Washington's defense on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, at the Dee Events Center in Ogden.

Robert Casey, WSU Athletics

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Eastern Washington's Sam Stockton (20) and Sebastian Hartmann (21) close down Weber State's Nigel Burris in the paint on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, at the Dee Events Center in Ogden.

Robert Casey, WSU Athletics

❮ ❯

OGDEN — Outside of Andrew Cook, Saturday brought one of the ugliest college basketball games possible.

Weber State’s defense was markedly improved from Thursday’s loss to Idaho but, offensively, the Wildcats beat their heads against the wall over and over, unable to get shots to fall against Eastern Washington.

Finishing 15 of 55 from the field, the Wildcats limped to one of the worst home conference defeats in program history, losing 72-49 to an Eagles team that happily snapped a five-game losing streak.

Now, WSU is 2-7 in league play at the midway mark of the conference schedule and 8-15 overall. Weber is 2-9 in its last 11 games and sliding, on and off the court.

“Mentally, we’ve been through a lot here lately. We’ve emotionally been through a lot,” WSU head coach Eric Duft said. “We have to fight that. It’s a life lesson right now.

“It’s not an easy time for our program right now. One of our own’s facing some critical things, but we have to move forward. Emotionally, we’re a little drained … we’ve just got to be able to play through it.”

And, they’ve got to do it again Monday night with Northern Arizona (13-9, 4-5) coming to town.

“We don’t have a lot of consistency every night and I feel like we’re just trying so hard to play well … I feel like the harder we play, it feels like the worse we get,” WSU senior guard Blaise Threatt said. “I think we need to just relax a little bit and just go play. It’s basketball, we do it every day, we’ve been doing it for years. … Your best games come when you’re just playing out there in the rhythm of the game.”

Despite struggling in the paint, Weber State led most of the first half. Through just more than 12 minutes, Weber was 4 of 8 from distance and 6 of 7 at the foul line while Eastern shot 6 of 20 from the field overall.

The Wildcats took a 24-21 lead when Threatt converted a drive with 2:33 left in the first half.

The game turned there. Vice Zanki, a sophomore forward, caught a lofted ball inside and banked it in, then immediately stole a careless WSU inbound pass for an easy layup. Eastern led 25-24 and Weber State would score just 12 points over the next 16:30 of game time.

The writing began appearing on the wall on a spark from Sam Stockton. With his Hall of Fame father, John, sitting 15 rows up on the 30th anniversary of the day he became the NBA’s assist king, Sam made an opportune play when Dyson Koehler drove into the paint. The younger Stockton came from behind on help defense and poked the ball away.

That led to Cook swishing a short paint fadeaway and, one possession later, Cook cashed in a baseline jumper. That capped a 15-1 run that began with the Zanki sequence and put EWU up 36-25 with 14:45 left.

Weber State drove the paint successfully but all success stopped when shots were taken. Point-blank misses, ill-advised tough takes, Eastern’s seven blocked shots, missed lob dunks, no-calls from a scattershot referee crew — it didn’t matter how, WSU missed almost everything in the paint.

“In the first half, some of it was we were trying to do things too quickly … the shots we were getting, they were at the rim. They were a little bit rushed, but they’re shots we make a lot of the time,” Duft said. “But then as some of those don’t go, you start panicking and it just builds on itself.

“We have 32 games on the schedule and you’re going to have some nights it doesn’t go in the hole … we just have to fight frustration. There’s no time to let frustration overwhelm us. We have to make sure that we handle it. We will, we’ll bounce back.”

“We just felt like we couldn’t buy a shot,” Threatt added, “and I think we let frustration get the best of us. That started with me. I got a tech and shouldn’t, that’s out of my character. I’ve got to be better … just got to be better come Monday.”

When Cook hit another jumper to make it 57-36 with 6:25 left, Weber was just 5 of 32 on two-pointers.

Eastern built that lead without usual starter Nic McClain; Cook’s 27-point night certainly helped as the senior NAIA transfer shot 9 of 13 when probing inside the arc.

Bricks mounted on both sides; after scoring 35 points on Thursday at Idaho State, EWU guard Mason Williams started his night 0 of 9 before casting in a deep 3 with his team already up 20 with 2 minutes left.

Overall, Eastern shot 8 of 28 (28.6%) from the 3-point line. Combine that with WSU’s 15-of-55 mark (27.3%) and — all in the second half — three technical fouls, two WSU players fouling out and 35 free-throw attempts, and the game devolved into the territory of barely basketball as the Wildcats limped to an 0-7 mark at home against Division I opponents.

Outside of Cook, the two teams combined to shoot 13 of 49 (26.5%) on two-point attempts.

Threatt totaled 17 points, seven rebounds and three assists for Weber State. Viljami Vartiainen added 13 points, going 3 of 6 from the 3-point line (all other Wildcats were 3 of 12 from deep). Koehler added nine points on 2-of-11 shooting. Nigel Burris pulled down five early rebounds, finishing with six.

Zanki tied his career-high, scoring 13 points to complement Cook’s night. Freshman center Emmett Marquardt totaled 12 points and 10 rebounds, and Stockton added seven rebounds and three steals.

With Miguel Tomley’s health departure and senior center Vasilije Vucinic getting his second DNP in three games, more minutes have now gone to freshman center Declan Cutler (19.5 minutes, two points, two rebounds, one block), freshman guard Trevor Hennig (16.5 minutes, two points, three rebounds, two assists), and redshirt freshman Nemanja Sarenac (10 minutes, zero points, one rebound).

Duft appears to have gone all in on WSU’s youth and taking any hits that come with it.

“When you’re part of this program, it’s more than just playing basketball. It’s going to help us, we’re going to grow, we’re going to develop,” Duft said. “I told them, I can take the blame. The blame out there, they can throw it on me, that’s all fine. Get off social media, don’t worry about what people are saying.

“We know what we’re going through. We’ll handle it, we’ll grow.”

WEBER WOMEN WIN AT EWU

Weber State women’s basketball is now 5-4 and fourth place in the Big Sky after a 62-48 victory Saturday afternoon at Eastern Washington.

In two games full of misses, the WSU women shot the best of the Weber and EWU men’s and women’s squads — 39% from the field and from the 3-point line. In the women’s game, Eastern finished 17 of 63 and a frigid 1 of 19 from behind the arc.

Weber State (8-11, 5-4 Big Sky) led 18-8 on a Kendra Parra 3-pointer to open the second quarter. The Eagles (7-15, 3-7) rallied to make it 18-15 but a Lanae Billy 3 with 1:19 left helped WSU close the half on a 12-4 run to lead 30-19.

Eastern cut its deficit to six with 3 minutes left in the third before another Billy triple restored Weber to an 11-point lead. EWU would get no closer than eight points the rest of the way.

Parra led WSU with 17 points, six rebounds and five assists. Antoniette Emma-Nnopu totaled 10 points, 13 rebounds and four steals. Billy added 12 points and five rebounds, and Taylor Smith pitched in 10 points and five rebounds.

Ella Gallatin led EWU with 13 points by shooting 7 of 7 at the foul line. Freshman phenom Kourtney Grossman totaled 11 points and 15 rebounds.

WSU remains on the road and faces second-place Northern Arizona on Monday.