Portland vs. UCLA: Gameday!

now I'm pissed.


We were up by 33. and we gave it away.

http://twitter.com/KevinDurant35
Even Kevin Durant is giving Taishi and our boys big ups for the win tonight. Love it.

Now that's what I call a thumping. Nicely done by the Pilots.

ANAHEIM UCLA’s recent victories over Cal State Bakersfield and Pepperdine weren’t enough to solve its early-season problems.

Portland put an early stranglehold on the Bruins Thursday night in the first round of the 76 Classic and went on to a 74-47 victory at Anaheim Convention Center.

The Bruins play Butler tonight at 8:30 in a second-round game.

The Pilots took a 36-19 halftime lead. Guard T.J. Campbell sparked Portland with 10 points as the Pilots shot 57.1 percent from the field. Six were 3-pointers (on eight attempts).

The Bruins were at the other end of the spectrum, hitting just 31.8 percent of their shots and going 1 of 8 from 3-point range.

Malcolm Lee made the only 3-point basket for UCLA but missed his three other shots from long range.

Despite their poor shooting from the field, the Bruins rtrailed just 18-13 with 7:31 remaining in the half.

However, the Pilots went on a 13-3 run, pushing their lead to 31-16 with 5:06 on the clock.

The Pilots took their biggest lead of the half (17 points) when Nik Raivio hit a 3-point basket with 1:06 remaining.

Senior forward Nikola Dragovic, suspended from playing in the UCLA’s past two games, played 11 minutes in the first half.

However, his only contributions came in the form of one steal and three turnovers. He threw one pass away and was whistled twice for traveling.

The Bruins, as they did in a season-opening loss to Cal State Fullerton, were stymied by an aggressive zone defense. UCLA seemed to spend a lot of time passing the ball in search of an open player rather than trying to find a way to score.

The Pilots were able to hit their shots from the inside and from long range.

Jared Stohl was 3 for 3 from 3-point range in the half.

Portland secured its second victory over a Pac-10 team in a week at it defeated Oregon last Friday.

Tournament schedule

Today

Game 1: West Virginia 85, Cal State Long Beach 62

Game 2: Texas A&M 69, Clemson 60

Game 3: Minnesota vs. Butler, 5:30

Game 4: Portland 74, UCLA 47

Friday

Game 5: West Virginia vs. Texas A&M, 11:30 a.m.

Game 6: Cal State Long Beach vs. Clemson, 2 p.m.

Game 7: Minnesota vs. Portland, 6:30

Game 8: UCLA vs. Butler, 8:30

Saturday

Game 9: Game 6 loser vs. Game 8 loser, 11:30 a.m.

Game 10 (third place): Game 5 loser vs. Game 7 loser, 2 p.m.

Game 11: Game 6 winner vs. Game 8 winner, 4:30

Game 12 (championship): Game 5 winner vs. Game 7 winner, 7


http://www.ocregister.com/sports/ucla-221413-anaheim-hammers.html
lots of pictures at the link.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-ucla-basketball27-2009nov27,0,4615228.story

purpleisfierce wrote:http://twitter.com/KevinDurant35
Even Kevin Durant is giving Taishi and our boys big ups for the win tonight. Love it.

Nice, but where is this "Portland University" he speaks of?

Great win. I was expecting a win, but, not by this kind of a margin. The Pac-10 is going to be weak this year which is good news for the WCC. I'm not sure if any teams in the Pac-10 are going to be decent beyond Washington and Cal and possibly ASU due to so many losses to the NBA. In fact, the announcers said that 3-4 WCC teams could make the tourney this year. Honestly, I hope this win looks good at the end of the year, but, I don't think it will be one of our bigger wins. I expect UCLA to really struggle and to lose a lot of games.

The next game will be our toughest of the year by far. Minnesota is our first ranked opponent. They beat the #1 ranked mid-major in the nation in Butler (we are currently the #9 ranked mid-major), and they have far more veteran leadership than UCLA. Being a glass half full guy, this game is win-win for us. Even if we lose, our RPI for strength of schedule will improve. We won't be losing to a bad team. On the flipside, if we win, I believe we will become a ranked team.

To all Pilot Fans

Congrats on a nice win ! You guys looked Great. I'm all for the WCC schools doing well especially against the PAC 10

Go beat the Gophers !
Nice job .... well deserved

GAELhoopFreak ..... is out

From the "storming the floor" blog

Two quibbles-
1)Not an anagram - more a Palindrome.
2)Being the first guard to sub in isn't exactly "deep off the bench", unless, maybe, you play like ucla.

Portland Anagrams UCLA, 74-47
By Seth on November 27, 2009 2:09 AM | No Comments
I could see the Portland Trailblazers beating UCLA by 27 points...but the University of Portland Pilots? Portland so thoroughly dominated their Thanksgiving night 76 Classic clash against UCLA that this is what TV viewers were subjected to early in the second-half:

Dave O'Brien: "Whatever happened to the VCR?"

Steve Lavin: "It went the way of the 8-track. Cassette tapes, albums."

O'Brien: "Albums, oh."

Lavin: "Now all you need is the iPhone."

Sadly, hearing the astute cultural observations of ESPN's fourth-string broadcast team was preferable to watching UCLA brick shot after shot against Portland's zone. Portland led 36-19 at half, and extended their lead to 23 early in the second-half.


Dad body language: "Can't believe I missed Paul McCartney for this."


"Daaaaaamn ucla is gettin killled," commented Washington guard Isaiah Thomas via Twitter. "What happen to the Bruins? Tradition? Lol all bad!"

I.T. makes a good point.

The Bruins' vaunted defense was a step slow against the Pilots' shooters. Portland hit 11 three pointers on 19 attempts, and shot 54% overall. UCLA couldn't even match that accuracy from the free-throw stripe, where they were 6-14.

Portland's Jared Stohl was 5-5 from deep off the bench. T.J. Campbell also had 15 points, 6 from the free throw line, as he outplayed UCLA's guards.

"We really have some soul searching to do before we step on the floor
in 22 hours,'' Ben Howland said after the game. "We haven't had a game like that since my first year here, and it feels horrible....We're obviously a long way from being a good team.''

The Pilots' win over UCLA is their first over the Bruins. In fact, it's the first time they've come within sniffing distance. Their previous three games against UCLA were losses of 65, 24, and 58 points. Now they have their own blowout win in the series. Perhaps most importantly, it came under the gaze of UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero, who doubles as the chairman of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee.

The 76 Classic continues tomorrow with Portland, 4-0 for the first time since '95-'96, playing #22 Minnesota and UCLA, in the losers' bracket, trying to redeem themselves against #12 Butler.

From Andy Katz, a comment giving good respect to the WCC:

Still, the win over UCLA helps Portland's credibility as it tries to get out from under Gonzaga's long shadow in the WCC.

"What this shows is that we can play, too," Stohl said.

That's true. But it also puts the Bruins in a light that makes you wonder not where Portland would finish in the Pac-10, but rather, where this UCLA team would finish in the WCC.

Let's remember, this is a league that features Maui Invitational champ Gonzaga, a Saint Mary's team that has barely missed a beat without Patty Mills, a San Diego team that already has beaten Stanford and Oklahoma and a Portland team that has easily dispatched two Pac-10 opponents.

Would those same Bruins we saw Thursday night finish any higher than fifth in the WCC?

That's something few, if any, would have pondered during the preseason.

BTW, I'm not sure I characterize the UO win as "easy".

LINK

up7587 wrote:From Andy Katz, a comment giving good respect to the WCC:

Still, the win over UCLA helps Portland's credibility as it tries to get out from under Gonzaga's long shadow in the WCC.

"What this shows is that we can play, too," Stohl said.

That's true. But it also puts the Bruins in a light that makes you wonder not where Portland would finish in the Pac-10, but rather, where this UCLA team would finish in the WCC.

Let's remember, this is a league that features Maui Invitational champ Gonzaga, a Saint Mary's team that has barely missed a beat without Patty Mills, a San Diego team that already has beaten Stanford and Oklahoma and a Portland team that has easily dispatched two Pac-10 opponents.

Would those same Bruins we saw Thursday night finish any higher than fifth in the WCC?

That's something few, if any, would have pondered during the preseason.

BTW, I'm not sure I characterize the UO win as "easy".

LINK

Huh, well, I can see why you might not want this to go to our heads, but, TJ did slam on the Ducks in the last 10 seconds after the game was already over. In the post game interview, Rev said that we had more time to scout for and prepare for UCLA than we did for other recent games. I think if we had more time against the Ducks, we might have been able to win by more. Though I think that UCLA would kill for a point guard of Tujuan Porter's calibur right now. I respect Tujuan Porter, but, we completely dominated the Ducks in the second half. Only the first half of the game was close. Basically the whole second half was a Pilot run, and I think that may have been a turning point for us as a program. Look at how much we've outscored our opponents since the second half of the Oregon game...

Well, the UO game was tied with 4:16 to go. From a game report:

The Pilots figured out how to deal with Oregon’s pressure defense during the break and opened the second half with a 15-1 run, capped by Robin Smeuldlers’ tip-in of a Luke Sikma miss that gave them a 52-45 lead.

From there, the lead changed hands four times, the Pilots going on top to stay on Jared Stohl’s three-pointer from the left wing that broke a 72-72 tie with 4:16 remaining.

Four 2nd half lead changes and a late tie; that's too close for me! I much prefer the stomping approach we used last night, although I imagine many casual viewers, and Bruins fans, turned that game off well before the final buzzer.

Go Pilots, beat Minnesota!

up7587 wrote:Well, the UO game was tied with 4:16 to go. From a game report:

The Pilots figured out how to deal with Oregon’s pressure defense during the break and opened the second half with a 15-1 run, capped by Robin Smeuldlers’ tip-in of a Luke Sikma miss that gave them a 52-45 lead.

From there, the lead changed hands four times, the Pilots going on top to stay on Jared Stohl’s three-pointer from the left wing that broke a 72-72 tie with 4:16 remaining.

Four 2nd half lead changes and a late tie; that's too close for me! I much prefer the stomping approach we used last night, although I imagine many casual viewers, and Bruins fans, turned that game off well before the final buzzer.

Go Pilots, beat Minnesota!

I prefer both approaches. The drubbing of UCLA was great for grabbing everyone's attention (although too much attention is on how weak UCLA is rather than our strength...we can change that tonight) but games like the Oregon game are amazing for the fans in attendance. No one left early and the entire game was fun. Hopefully that will get some fans to return to more of our games.

Good plan: blow-out wins on the road, and tight hard fought victories at home.

Wow! I had to record the game last night and avoid the internet and human contact today until after work to watch the game. I was confident about this game, but no way did I ever expect to win by 27. I was very impressed with the commentating staff, they definitely did their research on the Pilots. I haven't looked at the boxscore yet, but I assume we ended the game shooting well over 50% from the field and three. What a shooting performance by Jared. He has a very quick release.

The crazy thing to me...I think we could have played better and won by more. We definitely had some silly, unforced turnovers. UCLA got a few too many offensive rebounds in my opinion (though they often did not capitalize). Nik played a solid game, as did Sikma...really the whole team did. Other than the bad TOs, TJ played well.

My favorite part was after the game, Andy Katz's interview with Rev, "I really like our team. I really like our team." And he had a Sh**-eating grin on his face.

Slip It In!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Agreed... if TJ doesnt have a couple of those silly turnovers... we go up by 30+ sooner and maybe win by a larger margin. (yeah, yeah, i suppose the opposite is also true).

I was impressed with the way we came out to start the 2nd half... no let up, and we kept the foot on the throat and made it clear we werent going to let UCLA back in the game at all in the first couple minutes. No chance. In fact we scored the first 5 point of the second half, if I recall correctly (including a dagger 3 by Stohl).

Butler over UCLA 42-25 at the half