Sacramento State men’s basketball saw its conference championship hopes end as the team fell 91-83 to Eastern Washington University in the semifinal round of the Big Sky Conference Tournament.

Eastern Washington put forth a dominant display. The Eagles shot 32-for-55 (58.2 percent) from the floor and went 15-for-25 (60.0 percent) from behind the arc. Sac State made 29 of 60 (48.3 percent) of attempted field goals and shot nine-for-22 (40.9 percent) from 3-point range.

“I thought Eastern Washington played great,” said Sac State coach Brian Katz in a postgame press conference. “They deserve all the credit. [They] had a great game plan, executed it. [We] certainly didn’t get off to a good start, but give them all the credit in the world. We have no excuses; they outplayed us in every phase of the game.”

The game was not as close as the final score might indicate as the Hornets trailed by 26 points with 14:48 left in the game. While the Hornets did end the game outscoring Eastern Washington 38-20, the Eagles had a 15-point advantage at the two-minute mark in the game. By the time the Hornets trimmed the deficit to a single digit, only 35 seconds remained in the contest.

The Eagles outrebounded Sac State by a 32-29 margin. Eastern Washington received 39 points off the bench while the Hornets had just eight bench points.

Though the Hornets were able to hold sophomore Tyler Harvey—the leading scorer not only in the Big Sky but in all of Division I basketball—to just nine points a night after the guard scored 42, the Eagles found other scoring outlets. Eastern Washington forward Felix Von Hofe dominated the first half, going five-for-six from downtown and tallying 17 points in the period.

“They’ve got plenty of shooters on that team,” Garrity said in the press conference. “We kind of picked our poison and took away Harvey, and other guys stepped up and you’ve got to give them credit for hitting shots.”

Sac State went into halftime trailing 49-34.

Senior guard and regular-season conference MVP Mikh McKinney did all he could to keep his team in the game, scoring a game-high 24 points on nine-of-17 shooting and playing the entire 40 minutes. McKinney led the team with seven assists and had three steals.

Junior guard Cody Demps also gave a strong effort, scoring 14 points on six-of-eight shooting from the floor. He added five rebounds and four assists in 37 minutes on the floor.

Dylan Garrity scored 18 points but made just four of 14 attempted field goals. All four field goals were 3-pointers and the senior scored all 18 of his points in the second half.

The Hornets’ sophomore center Eric Stuteville also scored in double digits with 13 points.

Between the regular season and tournament play, the Hornets ended the year with an overall record of 20-11 and 14-6 in the Big Sky. Sac State entered the tournament as the No. 3 seed and defeated No. 6 Portland State on Thursday before the loss to the Eagles denied the Hornets a spot in the conference championship game.

By record, it was the best season the Hornets have had since joining the Big Sky in 1996. The 2014-15 campaign also marked the furthest the team has advanced in the conference tournament since reaching the semifinal round in 2006.

With the elimination, the Hornets will not qualify for the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, but Katz said in the press conference that the team has been invited to participate in the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament, more commonly known as the CIT.

“It’s been a long journey,” McKinney said in the press conference. “It’s been fun. It’s not over yet, we are going to play in a postseason somewhere, so it’s not over yet. But as far as what we’ve laid down so far, I mean, it’s been fun. It’s been a long journey and we’ve overcome adversity.”

The Eagles, meanwhile, will move on to face the winner of tonight’s second semifinal between No. 1 seed University of Montana and No. 4 seed Northern Arizona University in the championship round Saturday night.