BOISE, Idaho -- The Thunderbird men's basketball team saw their Big Sky Conference Tournament run come to a close on Friday night at Centurylink Arena, as they fell to the No. 3 seeded Eagles of Eastern Washington 77-61.  

"Ending the conference tournament is always tough, but I was really, really proud of our guys effort," SUU head coach Todd Simon said following the contest. "I thought our heart and our energy was good, but we were just a little short on our shots. We got cold. We were 1-of-14 at the rim in that first half and we couldn't quite squeeze one in."  

The Thunderbirds will leave Boise with a .500 record, sitting at 16-16 on the year. That's the first .500 or better season the T-Birds have had following a conference tournament since the 2006-07 season where they finished 16-14.

The contest was Southern Utah's third in three days.

Neither team got off to a particularly hot start, as the Eagles led 8-5 at the first media timeout. The T-Birds started finding their momentum after the first media timeout, and a massive throw down by Ivan Madunic put them ahead 12-10 with 11:33 on the first half clock.

The Eagles quickly responded with a run of their own, out scoring SUU 10-0 taking a 20-14 lead with just over seven minutes remaining in the opening frame.  

The T-Birds stayed cold for the rest of the opening half, but a triple by Madunic made the score 39-21 at the break in favor of the Eagles.

Southern Utah jumped out of the half on a 8-0 run, and pushed the EWU lead down to 46-36 at the first media timeout.

The T-Birds continued to chip away at the lead, at the second media timeout of the second half they had cut the Eagle lead all the way down to six. After the Thunderbirds cut the lead down to four, the Eagles hit back-to-back triples to extend their lead back to 10 with 8:23 to play.

From that point on, the Eagles were able to pull away from the T-Birds and secure their spot in the championship game for the second straight season.

Cameron Oluyitan led SUU's offensive effort with 19 points on 7-of-10 shooting. Jacob Calloway poured in 13. Those two were the only Thunderbirds in double figures scoring.

After only shooting 23 percent in the opening half, the T-Birds shot 46 percent in the second half.

Mason Peatling had a solid day for EWU, finishing with 20 points.

Southern Utah's postseason fate will be determined in the upcoming days, as a bid for one of the additional postseason tournaments in Division I college basketball could be on the table for the Thunderbirds.

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