BOISE, Idaho – Southern Utah was dismissed from the Big Sky Conference tournament with a 77-61 loss to Eastern Washington.

After pulling off a big upset over Northern Colorado the day before to advance to the semifinals of the Big Sky Conference tournament, things didn’t go nearly as well for Southern Utah against Eastern Washington.

The Thunderbirds led briefly in the first ten minutes of the game, but then went ice cold for the remainder of the first half. SUU suffered a major scoring drought that lasted over six minutes midway through the first half. In that time, the Eagles reeled off an 18-0 scoring run to take a commanding lead.  Eastern Washington’s advantage ballooned to as much as 21 points near the end of the first half.

Final.

Our Big Sky Tournament run concludes in the Semifinals against Eastern Washington. We'll leave Boise with a 16-16 Record. ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/RWGfGRXdHY

— SUU Men's Basketball (@SUUBasketball) March 16, 2019

The Thunderbirds rallied back to cut the deficit to just four with 11:42 remaining on a made jumper by Cameron Oluyitan. That was the closet they would get however as Eastern Washington reapplied the pressure and pulled away for the win.

Oluyitan led the Thunderbirds with 19 points on 7-for-10 shooting.

Eastern Washington’s Mason Peatling was the game’s high scorer with 20 points.

As a team, the Thunderbirds shot just 34.5 percent from the field while the Eagles shot 47.4 percent of  their shooting tries.

Cam leads us w/ 16, including this finish! pic.twitter.com/tNsbmmadmL

— SUU Men's Basketball (@SUUBasketball) March 16, 2019

Eastern Washington will play Montana, who defeated Weber State earlier in the day on Friday, for the Big Sky conference tournament championship and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

SUU’s season will end with a 16-16 record overall and a 9-12 mark in Big Sky Conference play.

The Thunderbirds haven’t made the NCAA Tournament since their lone appearance in 2001.