Don't let the 14-19 record fool you — the Eastern Washington Eagles finished the 2025-26 season as one of the most dangerous teams in the Big Sky. Dan Monson's second year in Cheney ended 11-7 in league play, and the Eagles closed the regular season by winning nine of their final ten games, a heater that turned a frustrating non-conference slog into genuine March menace. In a league where everything is decided in Boise, nobody wanted to see Eastern Washington in their half of the bracket.
The signature night came on February 12 at Reese Court: an 88-75 dismantling of Idaho State, the team's finest offensive outing of the season. The numbers were staggering — 55.8 percent shooting, a season-low six turnovers, a season-high-tying 22 assists. Redshirt senior Jojo Anderson dished a career-high nine assists and added 11 points. Grad senior Kiree Huie (8-of-10, 18 points) and junior Alton Hamilton IV (5-of-8, 18 points) owned the paint. And scoring leader Isaiah Moses poured in a team-high 19 without committing a single turnover. They kept winning.
Moses was the straw that stirred the drink all year — a redshirt senior guard who could get his own shot against anybody and set the tone with his motor. Around him, Monson built a roster with real balance: Huie and Hamilton IV formed a skilled, physical post duo; Anderson ran the offense with veteran poise; Johnny Radford and Emmett Marquardt gave the Eagles shooting and energy on the wings. It was a team that finally fit together, and the February surge was the proof.
Monson himself is one of the great stories in coaching. He took Gonzaga to the Elite Eight in 1999, spent eight years at Minnesota, then built Long Beach State over 17 seasons — culminating in the 2024 Big West tournament title and an NCAA Tournament berth in his final year. When David Riley left Cheney for Washington State after the 2023-24 season, Eastern Washington didn't hire a rebuild. It hired a 900-game Division I veteran who had seen everything and won everywhere — a Washington native who lived in Cheney as a kid when his father coached high school ball there.
The Riley years set the table. Riley kept the Eagles in the league's elite tier before leaving for Washington State after a 21-11 campaign in 2023-24. Monson's first year was a reset — 10-22 as the roster turned over — but year two was the validation: the system installed, the players bought in, and by February the Eagles were playing the best basketball in the conference.
The program's history says this is what Eastern Washington does. The Eagles have danced three times: in 2004, in 2015 — when they took No. 4 seed Georgetown to the wire in a first-round classic — and in 2021, when Shantay Legans's 14th-seeded squad led No. 3 Kansas by 10 in the second half before falling 93-84. Jim Hayford's 2014-15 team won the Big Sky tournament to punch its ticket. This is a program that doesn't just get to March — it scares people when it gets there.
Home is Reese Court in Cheney, Washington, one of the Big Sky's great atmospheres when the Inferno — the student section — gets going. The building has hosted Big Sky title celebrations and NCAA dreams, and last February it hosted the rebirth of a contender. There's nothing quite like a small gym with a good team and a loud student section, and Reese Court is exactly that.
The Big Sky remains a beautiful, brutal league. Montana and Montana State reload every year, Northern Colorado and Idaho bring veteran rosters, and Portland State and Sacramento State can beat anybody on a given night. For Eastern Washington, the path is clear: survive a demanding non-conference slate — the 2026-27 schedule, announced in August, features another crack at Washington State in Spokane — and be peaking when the calendar turns to March.
The 2026-27 season is Monson's third, and the trajectory is pointing straight up. The Eagles won nine of ten to close last season, the core of the system is in place, and the coach has a 469-437 career record built on exactly this kind of steady program construction. In Cheney, the belief is simple: the Big Sky runs through the teams that peak in March, and Eastern Washington just showed everyone what its peak looks like.
What defines Eastern Washington is the finish: a team that started 0-2 in November and ended the season as the league's hottest outfit, a Hall of Fame-caliber coach building his second act, and a program with a history of March scares that smells another one coming. In the Big Sky, February is for positioning and March is for legends. The Eagles are right on schedule.
The 2026-27 non-conference schedule, announced in August, shows exactly how Monson wants to build on the momentum: a demanding slate of Power Conference tests, headlined by a rematch with Washington State in Spokane — the program Riley left for, and the measuring stick for where Eastern Washington stands. It's a deliberate choice. Monson spent 17 years at Long Beach State scheduling aggressively, believing that November wars forge March steel. Last season's team started 0-2 with losses at Colorado and a 102-97 overtime heartbreaker, and by February those scars had become armor. The Eagles will take their lumps again in November. Come Big Sky play, they'll be ready.