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January 24, 2014

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One For The Record Books

When BYU scored the first eight points of the second overtime, things looked bleak for the Portland Pilots.

Who comes back from a 99-91 deficit with less than than two and a half minutes to play?

The Pilots, that’s who.

With Bobby Sharp and Thomas van der Mars leading the way, the Pilots rallied to defeat the Cougars 114-110 in triple overtime Thursday night in one of the wilder West Coast Conference games ever played at the Chiles Center.

This game never would have gotten to a third overtime if not for Sharp, who scored a season-high 27 points on 8 of 13 shooting from 3-point range, knocking down his final two treys in the final 31 seconds of the second OT to pull Portland even at 103-103.

Then there was Van der Mars, the 6-foot-10 junior center, who scored a career-high 27 points and matched his career-high with 18 rebounds as the Pilots withstood a 48-point outburst by BYU’s Tyler Haws to win for the third time in four games.

Big win, right?

“They’re all big,” Pilots coach Eric Reveno said. “Everyone in this league is so good. This game was a microcosm of the schedule in that … if you take your eye off the next possession, you’re going to be in trouble.

“You’ve got to keep your head down and keep grinding, and save the ‘woulda, coulda, shouldas’ to the end. And if you work hard, you minimize those.”

As Thursday’s game ended, the Portland student section came on the floor and hoisted Sharp off his feet and held him high for all to see. Sharp’s 27 points were nine more than his previous season high against Oregon State and his eight 3-pointers were two shy of the school single-game record held by Jared Stohl.

“Bobby was great,” Reveno said. “You get him some easy looks and all of a sudden he starts making those tough ones. Thank goodness he made them. That was great.”

The only other triple overtime game in Portland history was in the second game of the 1984-85 at San Jose State when the Pilots won 82-81.

Portland’s 114 points also were a school record against a Division I opponent, surpassing the previous mark set in a 112-105 victory over San Francisco in the 1991-92 season.

And, finally, the 48 points by Haws, who made 17 of 34 shots from the field and 10 of 13 free throws, broke the Chiles Center record of 43 set by Portland’s Matt Houle against San Francisco on Feb. 13, 1993.  It also ranked as the 11th highest single-game total in league history.

“It was a great college basketball game,” Reveno said. “You might live a long time and not see a triple overtime game like that.”

The Pilots (12-8, 4-4 WCC) now head into Saturday’s 1 p.m. game against San Diego with one more win than they had all of last season.

And they still have 10 league games left to play before the March 6-11 WCC Tournament in Las Vegas.

“I feel good,” Reveno said of the PIlots’ overall record. “I try not to be a curmudgeon and just focus on the ones we should have won that we didn’t, whether it was Montana State, North Texas, or San Francisco. The guys are giving it their all, so …

“We’re getting better. You look at our stats and people who watch us know we’re a better basketball team. We’re not perfect. We make mistakes. The press break could be better, we could make a few more free throws, but I’ll take a tough, scrappy group that finds a way to win any day.”

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January 5, 2014

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The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight

If you are a fan of the University of Portland men’s basketball team, all you need to know about Saturday’s home game against St. Mary’s is that the Pilots shot 38.0 percent from the field.

And they committed 11 turnovers.

And Kevin Bailey fouled out of the game with 5:18 to play.

And late in the game when the Pilots had to foul, the Gaels made 12 of 14 free throws.

There were a couple of bright spots for Portland, but nothing brilliant enough to make up for so many shortcomings as the Gaels waltzed out of the Chiles Center with a 72-63 West Coast Conference victory before a crowd of 2,304.

Stephen Holt led St. Mary’s with 19 points and Beau Levesque scored 14 of his 16 points in the second half as the Gaels (11-4, 2-1 WCC) ran their winning streak against Portland to six games.

Want more good news?

The Pilots (9-7, 1-3) wrap up their five-game homestand Thursday against No. 24 Gonzaga.

That one tips at 8 p.m.

On Saturday, St. Mary’s deserved credit for disrupting many of the things that the Pilots like to do offensively, beginning with Gaels’ starting center Brad Waldow bumping Portland’s Thomas van der Mars off the spots where he normally likes to shoot jump hooks.

The other match-ups weren’t much different. The Pilots had scoring opportunities, but a lot of the shots came from a step or two outside each player’s usual comfort zone. And then there were some open looks, including a few from beyond the three-point arc, that the Pilots were reluctant to take.

“We strangled them,” said Holt, the former Jesuit High standout. “We wanted to push them out on the floor and make it a little bit tough to catch. Then once they caught it, just ball pressure.”

One of Portland’s best stretches came in the second half after Bailey picked up his fourth foul and went to the bench with 12:29 remaining and the Pilots trailing 52-42.

First, Bobby Sharp hit a 3-pointer. Van der Mars followed with a free throw, Alec Wintering hit an outside shot with a foot on the 3-point line, and Volodymyr Gerun hit a layup with an assist from Bryce Pressley that pulled the Pilots within 52-50 with 8:23 to play.

That was where the highlights ended for Portland.

The Pilots came up empty on their next four possessions, going 0 for 3 with three turnovers, and it went from being a two-point game to a 10-point game with 3:33 to play.

Portland never got closer than seven after that.

“We had to weather the storm,” said St. Mary’s assistant Eran Ganot, the Gaels’ acting head coach while Randy Bennett served the third game of a five-game NCAA suspension. “Our guys were composed, but … we felt like we could continue to execute offensively and get shots. The difference would be if we can get stops.

“Our guys fed off the momentum and the energy that they displayed in the first half and that got them going. And we went back to that in the second half at that crucial time when it got tight.”

Saturday’s game marked only the second time this season a team has held the Pilots below 40 percent shooting for a game. The other time was against North Texas, and they lost that one in overtime.

Ryan Nicholas led the Pilots with 12 points, but played only 20 minutes as Portland coach Eric Reveno opted to go with a bigger lineup that featured Gerun and Van der Mars on the floor together. Gerun played 20 minutes to match his season high and finished with eight points, four rebounds, and a blocked shot.

Wintering had 11 points, but made only 3 of 11 shots from the field, including 1 of 4 from 3-point range. Nobody made more than one 3-pointer for the Pilots, who hit 3 of 10 shots from beyond the arc.

Van der Mars led the team in rebounds with eight, but had only one at the offensive end. Again, that’s a credit to the Gaels’ defense. St. Mary’s had a 35-28 advantage in rebounds, including a 12-8 edge in offensive boards.

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January 3, 2014

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Mr. Right Place, Right Time

The Portland Pilots list Ryan Nicholas at 6-foot-7 and 245 pounds.

By some Division I basketball standards, that’s small for a power forward, but in the West Coast Conference, Nicholas is as big and as rugged and as determined and as skilled as they come.

He has a bit of a nasty streak, too, in that he’s not afraid to stick his nose into places where it could get bent.

On Thursday night, Nicholas took over the Portland-Pacific game with just under six minutes to play and made a series of key plays at both end of the court that carried the Pilots to a 72-64 victory over the Tigers before a crowd of 1,173 at the Chiles Center. 

Maybe “took over” is bit strong, because Nicholas had plenty of help. Thomas van def Mars was a force inside with 18 points, 13 rebounds and a couple blocked shots, and Bryce Pressley posted his first career double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

But after the Tigers had cut a 14-point deficit down to two, 53-51, and the Pilots needed someone to take charge, Nicholas came through with one big play after another.

First, Pacific’s T.J. Wallace missed a 3-point shot that would have given the Tigers the lead, Nicholas grabbed the rebound and got fouled. He made both free throws, extending Portland’s lead to 55-51 with 5:38 to play. 

Next, Trevin Harris missed a trey for the Tigers and Nicholas again got the rebound, got fouled, and made both free throws to make it 57-51 with five minutes to play. 

After another Nicholas defensive rebound and an exchange of baskets, Nicholas broke the Pacific backcourt press with a long pass to a wide-open Van der Mars under the basket for an easy layup that pushed the lead to 61-53 with 3:14 remaining.

At that point, order had been restored for the Pilots. 

“I think we knew if we kept playing tough, kept rebounding the ball, and played defense, the averages would turn in our favor,” Nicholas said. “Overall, we played, I thought, pretty good defense. And I think as long as we continue that, make toughness and rebounding a big deal for us, we can win a lot of games like that.”

Nicholas finished with 17 points and 12 rebounds for his second consecutive double-double and team-leading sixth of the season. He also had  three assists and three blocked shots. And while some of the plays he made came down to him being in the right place and the right time, most of the plays he made during crunch time had to do with him being 6-7 and 245, with a bit of nasty streak.

Pilots coach Eric Reveno remembered yelling at Nicholas to “toughen up” after he rebounded the Wallace miss and then came close to losing the ball out of bounds as he was getting fouled by Pacific’s Ross Rivera.

“I told him just to firm up, because they were coming at him hard,” Reveno said. “With Ryan, you don’t have question his toughness. I was just trying to remind him what he needed to do in a game like that where I thought it was pretty fairly officiated.

“Rebounding was tough, because both teams were just going for it. If you pushed a guy blatantly, they called it. But two guys banging each other … it was hard to call. We needed Ryan to come up with those rebounds.”

The Pilots ended up with a 52-37 advantage in rebounds and almost everyone who stepped on the floor contributed, including junior wing Kevin Bailey with five and freshman point guard Alec Wintering with four. They also shot 42.9 percent (24 of 56) from the field to Pacific’s 32.9 percent (24 of 73), and made 21 of 29 free throws to the Tigers’ 8 of 14. 

The most important statistic was that the Pilots won the game.

After losing two conference games at home last week, first to San Francisco in overtime and then to Santa Clara, the Pilots (9-6, 1-2 WCC) needed a pick-me-up. 

Thursday’s win over the Tigers (9-4, 0-2) seemed to do the trick.

“It’s big,” Reveno said. “It’s bigger than I want it to be, but it’s a tough sell job to keep telling them you’re a good basketball team when you’re losing. We don’t have a lot of guys in the locker room right now with a tremendous amount of swagger and who understand what winning feels like. That’s just reality.”

Said Nicholas: “That win was really big, especially mentally. I’m not convinced any of us in the locker room were freaking out about the 0-2. We wish we would have won those games, but in reality, the last four games we were 2-2, counting two good wins (over Bradley and Princeton) in Las Vegas.

“A lot of people put a lot of emphasis on those first two conference games, and for good reason. but we know that we had a chance to win both of them. And we knew that we were a good enough team to win this one tonight.”

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December 31, 2013

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The best 0-2 team in the West Coast Conference

For six minutes early in the second half Monday, the Portland Pilots struggled to do much of anything right at either end of the court.

In those six minutes, the Pilots missed eight consecutive shots, turned the ball over three times, and went from trailing the Santa Clara Broncos 40-37 to trailing 52-37 with 12:20 remaining.

Still time for a comeback, right?

Portland twice climbed back to within three points, the second time when Thomas van der Mars converted a three-point play to make it 58-55 with 4:38 left, but that was as close the Pilots could get.

Final score: Santa Clara 76, Portland 68.

“Santa Clara was very disciplined offensively,” Pilots coach Eric Reveno said. “Do you remember them taking a bad shot, really? Like, late clock?”

Actually, with 5:25 left in the first half, Broncos junior guard Brandon Clark put up a 3-point shot that bruised the backboard.

That was a bad shot.

Aside from that, Santa Clara put on quite a show on offense, especially from beyond the 3-point arc where the Broncos knocked down 12 of 23 shots. The Broncos’ three starting guards — Jared Brownridge, Evan Roquemore, and Clark — scored 20 points each and went a combined 11 of 17 from long range.

The Pilots made only 2 of 11 shots from 3-point range. They also had 13 turnovers and one particularly frigid stretch at the free-throw line with about eight minutes left when they missed three straight, including the front end of two one-and-one opportunities.

Throw in Saturday’s 87-81 overtime loss to San Francisco, and the Pilots are 0-2 in West Coast Conference play with the Pacific Tigers coming to town Thursday for a 7 p.m. tip at the Chiles Center.

“Your margin for error in this conference is so slim,” Reveno said. “Mark my word. I’ll be surprised if there’s not an upset every week on any given night in the conference. It’s going to happen. It’s just a tough league … and you’ve got to scratch and claw and try to protect home court.

“I feel better than I did after Saturday night, because we made tough, physical plays. I felt we got bullied and beat up a little on Saturday. Tonight, we out-rebounded Santa Clara (43-27) and we got the ball inside and … making tough, physical plays will always give you a chance.”

Van der Mars finished with a game-high 23 points on 10-for-15 shooting, while Kevin Bailey added 19 points and Ryan Nicholas had 12 points and 13 rebounds for the Pilots.

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December 15, 2013

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Another home game, another near miss

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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