Fox's Jeff Goodman Talks Pilots!

PILOTS LAND BACK HOME FROM DOWN UNDER

For Portland coach Eric Reveno, the timing was ideal for an overseas trip. The Pilots returned virtually everyone of note from a group that won 19 games last season.

Reveno recently returned from the 10-day jaunt to Australia – one in which Portland won three of its four games.

Reveno, as many of the coaches maintain when going overseas, said the 10 practices prior to the trip may have been as important as the trip itself.

Reveno and his staff focused on individual instruction each morning, lifted in the afternoon and practiced at night.

``One of my goals was not to do any of the drills we did in the regular season,” Reveno said.

Reveno said the motto of the trip was to let the kids figure things out. In fact, he called just two total timeouts in the four games.

``We didn’t run many sets,” Reveno said. ``We tried to play out of transition.”

Reveno also said while it’s not on the same level, he was on the staff at Stanford when the Cardinal went to the Final Four in 1998. That team also returned just about everyone.

``Looking back, I don’t think we challenged them enough and made things interesting,” Reveno said.

The strength of the Pilots, once again, will be on the perimeter with the backcourt trio of Nik Raivio (16 ppg), Jared Stohl (11.2) and T.J. Campbell (11.1).

Reveno is hoping that Campbell, who set a school record a year ago in three-point field goal percentage, needs to be more aggressive offensively – even if it results in missing more shots.

He also said that reserve big man Luke Sikma, the son of former NBA star Jack Sikma, has made strides. He wasn’t able to play last summer due to injury and this offseason should help significantly.