LMU @ Portland, Jan. 21--MesaPilot night @ Chiles

Portland basketball: Robin Smeulders reaps benefits as opponents focus on Pilots' three-point threats

By Jim Beseda, The Oregonian

January 20, 2010, 4:47PM

Portland forward Robin Smeulders often shrugs and smiles when talking about his surge of inside scoring through the first two weeks of the West Coast Conference season.

He won't allow himself to get very excited about his offense -- he has 72 points in three league games -- because the Pilots (10-7, 1-2 WCC) are tied for fifth place heading into Thursday's game against Loyola Marymount at the Chiles Center.

The Pilots have noticed that opponents are focused on what T.J. Campbell, Nik Raivio and Jared Stohl might do from beyond the three-point line and are not preoccupied with anything Smeulders and the other UP big men might do close to the basket.

Now, whenever the ball goes inside to Smeulders, he's finding that he typically has only one defender to beat because teams are reluctant to send help and leave one of the Pilots' three-point threats unguarded.

If Smeulders continues to see one-on-one coverage against the Lions (10-9, 1-2) in tonight's game, the 6-foot-10, 230-pound senior from Braunschweig, Germany, hopes to keep wrecking havoc with his offense.

"I'm just trying to make plays," Smeulders said. "If that means I end up getting 10 assists or 20 rebounds and zero points, as long as we win, it doesn't matter. Lately, though, I've been scoring a lot."

He led all scorers with 24 points in the Pilots' 81-78 loss to Gonzaga in the WCC opener two weeks ago, scored 19 points in last week's 63-54 victory at San Diego, and then broke loose for a career-high 29 points in Saturday's 77-72 loss at Saint Mary's.

"I didn't change anything in my game or anything," Smeulders said. "The team didn't change anything. Things have just been working a lot better for me. The guards have been getting the ball to me more and I've been finishing."

Pilots coach Eric Reveno's basic offensive philosophy is to take whatever the defense gives, and he has said repeatedly that he doesn't care where his team's points come from as long as his players recognize what's available and execute accordingly.

Lately, that has translated into getting the ball to Smeulders.

"You really can't discount the fact that teams are choosing not to help on Robin at all," Reveno said. "Idaho helped and paid the price by Jared Stohl making 10 of 15 three-pointers. I don't know how many assists our post players had that game, but a lot of that was inside-out stuff.

"Other teams have all watched that tape and coaches don't want to look foolish. Nobody wants one of the best three-point shooters in the conference (Stohl) or T.J. Campbell or anybody else going off shooting threes, because everybody knows we can do that. So, they're saying, 'Let's see if they can beat us inside.' "

Smeulders has stepped up to the challenge, pushing his season scoring average to 13.9 points, which is second on the team behind Raivio (14.1) and head of Campbell (12.5) and Stohl (9.4).

"Teams are really trying to deny our outside shooters the ball," Smeulders said. "Down low, it's really one-on-one, so the other big men and I have been trying to take advantage of that.

"Of course, I'm not going to force it, where I'm getting 20 points on 50 shots or anything like that. But if it's there, I'm going to try and score."

In three WCC games, Smeulders is shooting 70.3 percent (26 of 37) from the field and 71.4 percent (20 of 28) from the free-throw line. He also has 21 rebounds, two blocked shots, a steal and an assist during that stretch.

At the same time, the Pilots have seen their three-point attempts drop from 20.1 a game to 14.3, and their shooting percentage from three-point range has slipped from 39.9 percent (112 of 281) in 14 nonconference games to 32.6 percent (14 of 43) in league play.

"It's only three games, but this is how the league figured out to play us last year," Reveno said. "I'm not really concerned. I think that we've got to keep working to execute our offense and get our shooters shots, because the harder we make it for teams to take that away, the more it will open up other things if they really do commit to it."

- Jim Beseda

ShipstadPilot11 wrote:College Basketball Handbook
How to Double an Opponent's Score:
See UP vs LMU, 1/21/10

PilotNut wrote:The key tonight was defense. Absolutely dominant team defense on the Lions--forcing turnovers, blocking shots, and only allowing 11 LMU field goals all night. We held LMU to 3 points in the final 10:38.

Rob's Jacket wrote:
I'm speechless, and so happy to return from a month-long hiatus!

(And, for the first time, grateful that I plunked down $8.)