Nevada

Now that the soccer season is over, the focus should be on our improving basketball team. Any thoughts on how the game tomorrow night will go? I hope the players won't be as bloated on leftovers as some of us fans!

I think this will be as tough as the Washington game. I don't know anything specific about this year's team, but Nevada has been a solid program in recent years. The Pilots will need to come out the same way they did against the Huskies and take much better care of the ball.

Nevada has one of the top freshman recruits in the nation Luke Babbit, who backed out of his verbal commitment to Ohio State to attend Nevada in his hometown. He like Poling,(Zaggette), peaked super early in High School(5 star recruit),kinda leveled off from being one of the top recruits in the nation and has started to get a little better again. . I know the Pilots will have their hands full with him. Though only a freshman he brings much experience playing against the top competion in the nation over the last 3-4 years. He was recruited by EVERY University -N.C., Kansas, Arizona,Ohio State,etc... 2 years ago. I think he has been their leading scorer this year, either him or their best guard. Nevada lost their best player a center who chose to be an early entry to the NBA draft though.Hopefully Kramer,Luke,and Robin's size will be effective inside and one of them can nuetralize Babbit. (I'm not saying he's Brockman, but he's only a Frosh).

I believe the key to game will be how well T.J. , and Nik play against their backcourt.Ethan (our unsung hero) is due for a good shooting game if their keying on Stohl and Eric can't get his 3 point shot off coming off of pick's or in transition.

Can't wait, like I said a couple month's ago, I believe this is one of the true measures of this team's season to me. I'm glad it's in the Chiles Center. A win would would take the Pilots to 4-1 vrs.fairly tough competion and the season keeps getting brighter. A loss affect's the teams mojo,and damage's their confidence somewhat during this early non-conference season and into WCC play later.


Enjoy the game, In Person ,just me and my stretchnet again,...sigh....


Mesa Pilot1


I believe many of the player's went to the coach's house after practice for Turkey Dinner so hopefully Rev's wife didnt let them over indulge,lol.

The last time I saw Nevada play in person, they were spanking Gonzaga in Seattle during the NCAA tournament a few years back. Here's hoping that UP can handle Nevada better than GU did!

Should be a fun game tonight. I wonder whether there will be a decent crowd. There should be, as Nevada is one of the better teams to play in Portland this year. We'll be there in our seats. Go Pilots (except when playing GU of course).

Per the morning paper, Nevada lost to Pacific on Wednesday. And the Latest Line is UP as a 2 point favorite. Hmmm, not sure I'm comfortable with that. Been living in the underdog role for too many years, I guess.

p.s. we've got lots of great soccer smiley's, how about some more basketball smileys, guys!

These should get you started.

Geezer! I knew you'd come thru!

And welcome back, Purple.

yeah, well, I would have preferred to wait another week to switch back....

Even though Nevada has struggled a bit to start the season, this would still be a tremendous win for the Pilots and would really legitimize our start to the season.

Nevada was the pre-season favorite to win the WAC, has the WAC's pre-season player of the year (PG Armon Johnson), and has won five straight WAC titles... no doubt about it, this is a really good program. And a win over them would be terrific.

One other note... one of their best players, Brandon Fields, has been hurt and has only been back the last two games and in limited minutes at that. Not sure how much he will play against the Pilots, but having him back and playing a lot of minutes would make Nevada a much stronger team than they've shown thus far.

Indeed today's game is another reality check for where this team is, so far... a win today sure would be nice.

Nevada lost at USD by 14 and won at home vs. Oregon State by 8.

It looks like the Wolf Pack do not have a true Center, and we will need to leverage our potential size & rebounding advantages...

Go Pilots!

Dammit I wish I could be there... will someone please double cheer for me?? And please don't make Stoney be the only one belting out the fight song...

Did I see that the Pilots won!?! Alright.

Slip It In!

Free Throws 10-22. Might need to work on that.

Can't wait to hear from someone who was actually there.

Great Win!

4-1 now, it was great to see the Pilots work the ball inside into Knutson at the start of the game. Balanced scoring TJ-16,Nic-15,Kramer-15. It's nice to see the Pilots can get scoring from anybody in starting lineup..this is a great confidence booster for the men. Now Eastern Washington,hopefully we can get some payback for last years close loss. It is nice to not lose the close games all the time like last year.

I'm getting excited for the improving Pilots. It was great to see B.J. Porter get some minutes,I can't wait to see him be able to "explode" and show his great athletic ability some game. I am glad to see him in the rotation.

Not to bring up a bummer,but does anybody have any word on "Big John". I haven't seen him on or near the bench.? What's up with his leave did he head back east, or what? I wish him well whatever is happening with him?

I agree about the free throw's.The Pilot's were getting killed on the board's in the first half too. But a win's a win,and I'll take it!!!



MesaPilot1

Well, it was a game that kept your attention. Nevada had some pretty good players. Babbit is as advertised. He has a nice shot from outside (way outside) and can play inside as well. looking at his stats after the game, I was surprised he was only 2-5 from 3 pt. It felt like he was killing us, but I guess they were long two's. Nevada was also an athletic team, and despite height mismatches all night, actually got more boards.

For the Pilots, Niedermeyer tweaked his ankle early and had to sit. It loooked like Rev called his number to go back in and he limped so bad going to the scorer's table that Rev sent him to the locker room instead. Hopefully, he's ok. We did manage to show a decent mix of inside and outside scoring, Ito came in and played with TJ late to help with the ball management. that seemed to work well. The pilot defense was pretty good. It looked like Nevada wanted to go 1v1 more, but the Pilots shut it down.

Other Than that, the real story of the game was the Free throws for the pilots -- 45%.
If we had hit anywhere near our usual percentage, the game would have been more relaxing to watch. They almost gave it away.

Good win. It's nice to have a not-so-good game and still win against a good team. Last year we had good games and lost.

You can expect that Big John is gone for the year. I don't even think he's in school and may never be back.

Sorry, can't give a full report; arrived late after watching a football game. But free throws were poor, a lot of shots near the end were missed, rolled out, got blocked, etc. But defense played tough, they forced some mistakes and turnovers, and they played tough at the finish. The last second shot to tie didn't fall this time. Good win, and now have to deal with two more games this week.

It was u-g-l-y. But we won.... Had we made some free throws, we would have won going away, but it was good to see us hold on in an ugly game and pull out the W.

As Mesa alluded, this is exactly the type of game we wouldnt have pulled out last year.

All in all, we played tough D... Nevada is very athletic and quick. It was painful to watch, but we got the win, so I cant complain much.

Bring on EWU and Idaho!

Pilots built a pretty good lead in the second half but let Nevada back in. Make some FTs and things would have been different.

What I saw tonight was the Pilot big men went against some fairly strong and athletic post players from Nevada and still did a capable job. This kind of win really encourages me. Like others have suggested, the Pilots have held on in several close games this year. I doubt they would have done the same last season.

If you're undefeated at home, clap your hands!

Wish I could have been there (stupid work) but I'm SO FREAKING THRILLED with this win. I don't care if Nevada has struggled a bit... they still were picked to win the WAC and returned two starters and several key bench players from a really good NCAA tournament team last season.

This is big. I've been trying to keep my emotions in check, but screw it... we're 4-1, we've got some solid wins, and we are gutting out wins in a way that we haven't seen in a long, long time.

Let's enjoy it... we're starting to see the fruits of all the labor of Reveno and his staff, and our young guys are finally maturing. This season is going to be a heck of a lot of fun. Even if we don't end up racking up tons of wins, the improvement of the team is so tangible that you can't help but be excited about what the future holds.

And how about Campbell... man, what a difference-maker. Depending what happens this year and next, I'm almost tempted to say program-changer.

PurplePrideTrumpet wrote:
If you're undefeated at home, clap your hands!

OK,

Stonehouse wrote:
And how about Campbell... man, what a difference-maker. Depending what happens this year and next, I'm almost tempted to say program-changer.

Kinda like Kweemada King?

I kid. This guy can play.

Nevada did not look very sharp to me. they have huge flaws in the post. Babbit while a good offensive player was abused down low. Their zone didn't do much and they had to get out of it when we started the second half with 3 strait three pointers. This forced their "bigs" to go one on one, which wasn't going to work. Free throws killed, hopefully we can get a big win against ewu and idaho this week,

Campbell really is a difference maker on this team, and I hope that Stoney's prognostication comes true--that Campbell is the piece of the puzzle that gets us around the corner... and he is only going to get better as the young season rolls on...

Any reports on Niedermeyer today? We sure missed him in the 2nd half... hopefully the injury isnt too serious; he went down akwardly towards the end of the 1st half.

Ethan had his foot in a boot today at the women's game. Not good.

Ethan is going in for an x-ray tomorrow.