CHENEY, Wash. - There's something about losing at Reese Court that truly bothers the Idaho State men's basketball team and makes defeat taste even more sour than normal.

Maybe it has to do with the Bengals' six-game road losing streak against Eastern Washington or maybe it has to do with always feeling like they gave their opponent something less than their best effort.

Whatever the reason, Idaho State was once again left to deal with the emotion of extreme disappointment following a 71-65 loss Thursday in Cheney, Wash.

"We should have got this win," Idaho State junior center Deividas Busma said. "We're a better team than this."

That frustration showed. As the game ended, coaches yelled at the officials, players threw their mouthpieces to the ground and everyone sulked to the locker room as if they had just lost a playoff game. Then, after a brief postgame chat, they quickly headed for the bus and tried to forget all about it.

What else could they do?

All season, a lack of offense has held them back, but against the Eagles they lost despite playing one of their best offensive games of the season. Idaho State beat the Eastern Washington in almost every category other than the final score.

The Bengals had more scorers in double figures, four to three, they outrebounded the Eagles 29-27 and even made more 3-pointers, six to five. They also only committed 11 turnovers while dishing out 12 assists. All were vast improvements from recent games.

"Those were all positives," said assistant coach Steve Swanson, who spoke in place of head coach Joe O'Brien because he was ejected from the game with 8:01 remaining. "We proved we can score the ball against (similar) competition."

But they couldn't defend quite well enough or keep the Eagles off the free-throw line. That's where this game was decided.

Eastern Washington's big three - Brandon Moore, Milan Stanojevic and Benny Valentine - combined to score 51 points, and the Eagles made 20-of-21 shots from the line.

Amazingly, the Eagles entered the game shooting having made only 66 percent of their free throws. They surprised even Eastern Washington coach Kirk Earlywine.

"When you step up there and go 20-for-21 that certainly helps," Earlywine said. "We needed all of them. I believe we were next-to-last in the league in the free-throw shooting coming into game."

Stanojevic hurt Idaho State the most. He led all scorers with 20 points and made all 10 of his free throws. Particularly hurtful was that his 10 foul shots were basically gifts from the Bengals.

He went to the line four times in the second half after O'Brien was hit with two technical fouls and ejected for arguing a no-call on a Lucas Steijn missed layup, and the other six came from Matt Stucki fouling him during two 3-point attempts.

Stucki adamantly argued that he did not committ those fouls, but they were called all the same. Moore also hurt Idaho State by scoring 17 points, and Valentine added 14.

Seeing as how O'Brien's message before the game was to contain the trio, Idaho State was not pleased with its defensive effort.

"We should have listened to what coaches said and executed our defensive assignments," Busma said. "That was a huge factor in the game. Those three guys were the guys coach told us to contain."

Swanson couldn't have agreed more.

"As a defensive team, that's what makes this game hurt," he said.

Falling behind early didn't help, either. It took Idaho State more than three minutes to score its first points, Stucki picked up two quick fouls and the Bengals fell behind 6-0 at the start. They responded with a 9-2 run to take a 9-8 lead but seemed to be playing catch-up all half. They went into the break trailing 27-25.

Idaho State came out looking strong in the second half, though, and took a 38-34 lead behind a 13-4 spurt th at took only three minutes.

Donnie Carson and Chron Tatum shined during that stretch. Carson scored 13 points, and Tatum ended the game with 13 points and 13 rebounds. Amorrow Morgan also added 13 points, and Busma scored 10.

The game went back and forth for the next few minutes until O'Brien was tossed with Idaho State trailing 52-49. Four free throws from Stanojevic and two more from Brandon Moore put the Eagles up by nine.

At that point, the game looked over.

But Tatum said O'Brien's ejection didn't affect the game.

"I thought we should have been ahead earlier and collectively capitalized on their mistakes," he said. "That's why we were down. Not that."

Besides, Idaho State put together a 11-2 run behind the leadership of Swanson to tie the game at 60-60 with 2:59 remaining. It was still a game.

Eastern Washington responded with five straight free throws, though, and went back ahead 65-60. Idaho State cut the score to as close as 67-65 with 37.2 seconds remaining, but it couldn't get the defensive stop it needed to get over the hump.

Down the stretch, Moore made a hook shot that hit every part of the rim and Eastern Washington, and Valentine scored the last four points of the game.

With the loss Idaho State dropped to 4-12 overall and 1-1 in conference play. Eastern Washington improved to 9-7 and 3-1.

Now the Bengals must try to make up ground in their next game at Portland State on Saturday. Not the easiest place in the Big Sky to win, especially following the Vikings surprising 80-66 loss to Weber State.

Maybe that's why losing to Eastern Washington hurt so much this time.

Note:

The Idaho State radio broadcast could not be heard over the air because of a power outage at 930 AM KSEI.