Eastern Washington

Tonight's game will be a good test for the Pilots. A team that beat us last year, is projected to do well in the big sky, and a team we should beat if we think we are better than last year. To have a chance at a winning schedule, this is one of the ones we should get.

So... come to the game and show your support!

We should win...unless Rodney Stuckey comes back from the NBA...which won't happen. We can take 'em.

stanojevic is 5-5 from three land, he's on fire,

Bad show all around. The team played poorly. The students didn't show. Even the pep band was mostly absent.

EWU looked pretty good. They shot very well, and defended tough, contributing to poor Pilot shooting. Add to that the unforced errors by us and and giving up too many second chance shots, and it becomes a loss.

Need to learn some lessons form this one and come back strong for Idaho. There are tough road games to follow and another loss could out this season on a bad track.

Agreed, the game was awful from almost every aspect... the lone bright spot being BJ Porter. That kid is athletic... and a walking highlight reel. His alley-opp dunk was awesome, and the tip rebound off the missed free throw was impressive.

Otherwise, a crappy night all around.

We really missed Neidermeyer tonight, btw.

I didn't see any great superiority from EWU. It seems to me if their Serb doesn't hit 5 three's in a row, they aren't in it at all....

UP's mistake was to leave him open in the corner. Once they put Ito on him he got shut down. The only problem was that Taishi didn't hit his in that span.

On the bright side, we only had 9 turnovers, though it seemed like more, and forced 16. We also had a positive assist to turnover ratio and more steals, so the hustle was there.

a better focus on who we had to stop would have helped.

So, about the band...

There was a jazz band/concert band concert last night at 7:30. That meant that the people who WERE at the game last night are people who aren't in either of those groups. That should have been about as bad as it gets this year.

Was hoping that it was going to be a better result.

OK... I held off posting last night to let me thoughts percolate a bit.

First and foremost, the big problem I saw was a lack of energy. From the team, from the crowd... it just seemed like there was a vaccum sucking the life out of the building. Eastern Washington came in and played hard and competed, but come on... we should have beaten that team. Just seemed like we had some sloppy execution (sure seemed like we had more than 9 turnovers), took bad shots, made mental mistakes, etc. I definitley didn't feel like we were out-talented... just maybe a bit outworked.

It seemed like every time we started to make a little run and cut into the lead and when we had a chance to really start turning the tide, we would just cough it up. And when we did finally take the lead late in the second half, it felt like we just froze... we could have pushed that lead a lot bigger but our execution just got miserable.

And what the heck was with our inability to rebound late in the game? Early in the second half, it seemed like we were snagging every board - I even mentioned to my dad how we were just killing them on the boards. Then all the sudden someone turned off the switch. Their offensive rebounds REALLY hurt us.

But... you know, it was disappointing and I'm ticked that we didn't come out with a better effort, but I'm going to allow them their mulligan and look at it this way - for as bad as we played, we at least had an opportunity to tie the game in the final minute. We played awful all night and still had a chance to win the game. So... yeah. We better bring it against Idaho.

General notes:

* Robin is really good. He took over the game midway through the second half. I love his fire and he's got some great moves in the paint... seemed to me like he was the only guy who really brought it tonight.

* Agree with PilotNut about Porter... he provided a good spark. Still raw, but he will be able to contribute in his career for sure. He's still only a freshman.

* Poor Nik had probably his worst game as a Pilot. I'll chalk it up to an aberration... it just wasn't his night. I truly felt bad for him when he fumbled the ball in the corner when he went up for that three pointer in the last minute. You could tell he was just really frustrated.

* I hope I never see the line-up with Campbell and Ito on the court at the same time ever again. I realize Ito does good things on defense and draws charges and all that, but he clearly has no confidence in his shot... the series where he took three shots late in the first half was embarassing. Eastern didn't even bother to guard him. That's just too much of a liability on the offensive end.

* Two eerie similarities with the Portland State game: an undersized point guard took over the game late, and our execution in the final minute was terrible. Not really sure what to make of it. But down by three, with the ball, 45 seconds left... and Stohl takes a long two? Right guy we want shooting, but a long two??? And it was super off balance because it was almost blocked. That was just bad.

* Was interesting that we started Knutson, Sikma, and Smeulders but then never really went back to that line-up. I think it could have been effective (we definitely were getting boards) but then Robin started firing off long-distance jumpers. I wonder if Rev will continue to tinker with that... I kind of like the idea.

* Campbell had some terrific passes, but he also had some costly turnovers late in the game. I love him and I think he's such a good fit for our team and has made us a lot more competitive almost single-handedly, but he's still a work in progress... that one where he just threw it into the legs of an Eastern player was especially painful.

* Hannibal... definitely wasn't shy when he was out there. But it seemed like we were forcing it to him a bit, and he definitely wasn't passing out of the paint once he got it. I guess I like the confidence, but he's not really helping us when he's throwing up bad shots.

Anyway, I don't want to get too fired up or critical... clearly it was just one of those nights. Bad game all around, but it's nothing we can't recover from. Let's just hope we have a solid performance against Idaho, because the schedule is about to get really tough really quick.

Great post, Stoney... I agree. Maybe I hadnt noticed it before, but Campbell was really telegraphing his passes last night... it was almost as if he was very tired?

Your vacuum reference is spot on; the entire atmosphere last night was bizarre. The crowd was off, the team was off, the cheerleaders & band were off, the time-out contests were off... No one "showed up" last night.

Thank goodness the Pilot Club beer, Goldfish & Pokies were well stocked, so it wasnt a total loss...

My name is TJ Campbell, I was a Juco All-American guard at Glendale Community College. When I am in the game I do not need another Point Guard in the game at the same time. I have been playing Pt Guard for 2+ yrs at the collegiate level.

Please ,oh, Please would you play a shooting guard like my friend Eric Stohl he shoot real good when I throw him the ball. Sometimes my friend Nik shoots real good too. I need rest once in a while when I get real tired and need a drink of water. When I go to bench would you please put in my backup , he not good shooter (0-4 from 3pt line) but gives me a chance to sit and rest and talk to coach and take drink of water


TJ Campbell


......For my Christmas present I would like more Student's at my games,and I heard Portland,Oregon was a big basketball town. Maybe the Trailblazers, and Vikings could send some of their fans?.....

Ha ha... nice Mesa.

One thing I forgot to mention... we missed Ethan big time. Just his energy out on the court would have made a big difference.

As for the students/crowd/band... seems like a lot was working against it with it being a Wednesday night, dead week, a band concert elsewhere on campus, etc. Problem is, Saturday at 2PM isn't really ideal either... too early for students to get really fired up, and also finals week looming... blah.

Re Forcing it into Hannibal:

In the first half the team was not passing it into Hannibal at all, so Coach yelled at them to pass it into "J" as he is open. I am wondering if they took it too much to heart.

For a good chunk of the game we were not dumping it into the post if they were being fronted, even if there was plenty of room behind. I think that, that is an area we need to look at for easy baskets when we are not hitting from the outside. We do the same with picks. It seems like we never pass to the pick. PG/SG just makes use of the pick and never passes off in time for a open shot or drive. It is always after the defense has gotten back on the pick player that we look to get them the ball.

up7587 wrote:Bad show all around. The team played poorly. The students didn't show. Even the pep band was mostly absent.

Most of them were at a concert. Now you know why there are alumni in the band. I think we pulled it off just fine.

Last night the turnovers caught up to the Pilots. I saw several times when they would get a steal and look to run, then throw it right to the other team. Maddening. I also don't know what happened to the rebounding in the second half since they had been doing a good job this season. I also agree that B.J. looked all right out there when he played.

Lastly, T.J. makes some very good points.

Video clips of the game: Link