CALDWELL, Idaho — The Montana Tech men's basketball suffered its first loss of the season 93-77 against No. 10-ranked Eastern Oregon in Caldwell, Idaho Friday.

The Orediggers opened up the College of Idaho's tournament up strong by taking a 40-35 lead at halftime.

The Mountaineers came storming back, though, and ended up with a 16-point win to improve to 4-0 on the season. Tech fell to 2-1.

Eastern Oregon's Anthony Brown and Jamar Johnson both scored 18 points in the win. Travares Peterson provided 17 points.

Montana Tech was led in scoring by Tyree Haynie with 13 points. Daniel Simon put up 12 points. A.J. Paine, Trent Thompson and Bryan Bock all finished with 11 points for the Orediggers.

The Mountaineers held a 37-31 advantage in rebounds in the game. Both teams committed 20 fouls.

“They're ranked 10th in the country and beat Carroll by double digits,” Montana Tech head coach Aaron Woliczko said. “We knew they'd be a tough test for us. “

The coach was happy with having five players score in double figures, but said better free throw conversion was needed. He pointed out, too, that Thompson made all three of his 3-point attempts in the 

first half.

“Then, they made their adjustments to take his aggressiveness away,' Woliczko said.

He added that Bryan Bock provided a spark off the bench with a rebound, hitting a 3-pointer and working the paint against the big, physical Mountaineers.

“One of the biggest things was the battle on the boards,” Woliczko said. “We knew they would be a big ,physical team. They outrebounded us by six and got too many (15) offensive rebounds. “

The coach said alignments and size differences had to do with the rebounding margins.

“But those are excuses,” he said. “We need to go get the ball.”

Montana Tech will return to action with a contest against the College of Idaho, ranked No. 25,  set to tip off at 8 p.m. Saturday in Caldwell.