Trailing 65-62 with 3:12 to play in the game, the Pilots got the ball to Tanner Riley behind the three-point arc for a potential game-tying shot.

Riley eyed the basket and looked as if he might let it fly.

Instead, he held the ball, looking a bit unsure what to do.

“SHOOT IT!” Pilots coach Eric Reveno hollered from the bench, giving voice to what many in the crowd of 1,043 at the Chiles Center were thinking.

Riley, the senior guard, was understandably hesitant.

The Pilots had just missed four attempts from long range in the last four and a half minutes, and although the Montana State defense was giving Riley room to shoot, the situation begged the question: Was this the shot the Pilots wanted at this point of the game?

Clearly, Riley heard Reveno, whose voice carried better than usual on this afternoon —  the first Sunday after Finals Week when the normally robust student section was virtually vacant and many of those in attendance sat quietly as they waited for a reason to make noise.

Just then, Riley re-set and fired.

Tied game?

No, the shot missed and the Pilots never got closer than three points the rest of the way.

Final score: Montana State 72, Portland 69.

Riley misfiring with 3:12 to play did not decide the game. Portland had several other opportunities in crunch time to seize the upper hand, but that one sequence with Riley typified how most the game went for the Pilots, who struggled to find any kind of rhythm at the offensive end and were often hesitant in situations that called for more assertiveness.

The Bobcats (4-5) deserve credit for the job they did defensively against junior center Thomas van der Mars, holding the Pilots’ second-leading scorer to nine points on 4-for-7 shooting, while also making it difficult for anyone else for Portland to get much of anything close to the basket.

“Montana State did a great job of giving us the shots that they wanted to,” Reveno said. “They looked at us on film and they gave 33 percent 3-point shooters wide-open shots. If we got hot, they would adjust, but we didn’t, so they were able to pack it in … and we weren’t able to find something that would get us anything high-percentage.

“The strategy was to play defense like we’ve been playing, get stops, and get out in transition. We knew that they would change defenses a bunch. They’ve done it this year to teams where they disrupt you by changing defenses, and they disrupted us the same way.”

For the game, the Pilots shot 45.6 percent (26 of 57) from the field, and 30.4 percent (7 of 23) from three-point range.

The 23 attempts from long range matched a season high first set in a 79-73 loss at Oregon State.

“Those shots are shots that you look at and you say, ‘Yeah, they’re great if they go in,’ but then they don’t,” Reveno said. “Then what do we do when all of a sudden you have two or three wide-open shots in a row? Do you have something to go to or someone to go to and get the shot you want? That’s how we didn’t respond.”

The loss left the Pilots at 6-4 with two non-conference games remaining before Portland opens West Coast Conference play on Dec. 28 at home against San Francisco.

“The elephant in the room is the West Coast Conference,” Reveno said. “That’s what’s looming. We’ve got to get better for that, so I don’t really care much about Montana State. It’s all about what we can do to get better. If this helps us over the long haul or helps in two weeks …

“Two weeks from today, we’ll have one game in the WCC under our belt. If this game can help us win three or four more games in conference play, then it was well worth it. So, that’s my job — to make it so that we can learn from this game and get better.”

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