Army @ Portland, Saturday 2:00pm

MesaPilot1 wrote:zing , I'll be present in front of puter....physically....at least that is,lol........with my new "Wally Pilot" t-shirt on........

PilotNut wrote: We need to clean up 13-26 free throws as well!

Portland 67, Army 57: Pilots pocket win, then look to Gonzaga and conference play

By Special to The Oregonian

It didn't take long for the Portland men's basketball team to start thinking about its conference opener following a 67-57 victory over Army on Saturday in front of 1,681 at Chiles Center.

The clanging of weights could be heard before the post-game news conference even began, and talk of a 5 a.m. Monday practice and a special Saturday opening of campus dorms to encourage students to fill the stands Saturday against perennial West Coast Conference power Gonzaga followed a sometimes-tenuous close to the Pilots' non-conference schedule against a physical Black Knights squad.

"The next game is always the most important, but there's always a little something extra when you play Gonzaga," said Portland junior forward Luke Sikma, who scored 12points and grabbed a career-high 19 rebounds off the bench to lead the Pilots to their fourth consecutive home win.

"I haven't beaten (Gonzaga) in my career, and Portland as a program hasn't beaten them much in the past 10 years, so I think we're excited for it."

Senior forward Ethan Niedermeyer scored a season-high 14 points, while senior guards Nik Raivio and T.J. Campbell each added 11 points for Portland (9-5), who held Army to a single basket in the final four minutes to preserve its first win over the Patriot League's Black Knights (9-4) in three tries.

"Once we started executing, we handled their pressure well," said Niedermeyer, whose 11second-half points were buoyed by a run of three consecutive three-point baskets.

"We're excited for conference to start. There's a couple games we want back, but we can't have them. So we have to take every game seriously."

Army sophomore guard Julian Simmons led all scorers with 17points and the Black Knights held Portland scoreless for the first 4:35 of the second half, but Niedermeyer's trio of long-range hits over a 3:20 span pushed the Pilot lead to 14points with 7:22remaining. Army answered with a 10-point run to get the score within four points with 4:14 remaining.

Portland coach Eric Reveno said the group that closed the game settled in and picked up the defensive effort.

"We dug in when we had to," Reveno said. "I told them at that timeout, we don't have to score, we just have to make stops."

The Pilots went on an early 18-0 run behind four consecutive three-pointers and were shooting better than 70 percent from the field in the opening minutes of the first half.

Army got within single digits with 5:08 left in the first when forward Chris Walker hit a hook shot from the right baseline to make it 31-22, but the Pilots closed out strong to preserve a 39-26 lead at the half.

Portland finished the first half at 53.6 percent (15 of 28) from the field against the Patriot League's top defense, including a 6 of 14 clip from behind the three-point line. After a solid shooting start, the Black Knights went cold in the final 20 minutes, hitting just 8 of 29 field goals (27.6 percent) in the second half.

The Pilots out-rebounded the Black Knights 41-25 in the game, and Portland held Army without an offensive board in the first half.

Guard Josh Miller added 11points and forward Cleveland Richard added 10 more for the Black Knights.

"With our schedule, we've been tested in every way possible," Reveno said. "We've played every kind of team -- very good teams, well-coached teams, athletic teams, disciplined teams, up-tempo, slow tempo -- and so now we get to go see where we fare in the West Coast Conference."

And though Reveno admitted a win over a Gonzaga team he called "the big kid on the block" would certainly give his once-ranked Pilots a boost to kick off WCC play, the fourth-year coach cautioned against putting too much stock into a single game.

"It's a fan prerogative to put different meaning on it because they want to see how we measure up against the team that has perennially been the yardstick on the conference," Reveno said. "I don't mind that thinking -- I understand it -- but at the same time, as we've learned this year, if you beat some big dog and don't back it up the next time, it's worth nothing."