Portland @ Pepperdine, Thursday 2/18, 5pm

Portland 83, Pepperdine 62: Jared Stohl, T.J. Campbell lead Pilots
By The Oregonian
February 18, 2010, 11:01PM
MALIBU, Calif. -- As eager as the Portland men's basketball team is to get Nik Raivio back from an Achilles tendon injury that has kept him out of the lineup for the past month, the Pilots can't complain about the opportunity it's provided to find other ways to win.

Jared Stohl and T.J. Campbell led the latest triumph in which four Portland players scored in double figures, as the Pilots pulled away in the second half for an 83-62 victory over Pepperdine on Thursday in a West Coast Conference game at Firestone Fieldhouse.

"Everyone's doing different things and contributing," Pilots coach Eric Reveno said. "It was a real workmanlike offense. That's probably what pleased me the most, the way everyone got involved."

Stohl, Raivio's replacement in the starting lineup, matched Campbell with a team-high 18 points. Stohl sank six of Portland's 13 three-pointers.

Robin Smeulders added 13 points for the Pilots. Nemanja Mitrovic contributed a season-high 10 points off the bench.

Portland (17-8, 8-3 WCC) led 35-30 at halftime. A series of three-pointers by Stohl combined with a solid defense helped the lead grow to more than 20 by the middle of the second half.

"We really stepped up the defense in the second half," Stohl said. "We kind of closed off those lanes they'd been finding in the first half, and the offense flowed from the defense."

Reveno agreed.

"It's simple," he said. "We stopped them from making shots and started making ours.

"Defensively we had some lapses in the first half."

Portland had used three three-pointers by Campbell to take the biggest lead of the first half at 15-7, but Pepperdine responded with a series of three-pointers. The Waves (7-20, 3-8 ) took their first lead, 21-20, with 8:23 left after back-to-back three-pointers by Jonathan Dupre and Mychel Thompson.

The Pilots tied the score on a three-pointer by Stohl, ending a 10-2 Pepperdine run. Portland regained the lead for good with a three-pointer by Ethan Niedermeyer.

Pepperdine's Keion Bell scored a game-high 23 points. Darby Taylor was the Waves' next leading scorer with 11. The loss was Pepperdine's eighth in a row.

-- Heather Gripp