Next Season. What, already?

bballguy wrote:Ohiu went 29-8 losing to UNC in OT in the sweet sixteen last year. Good Luck!

NoPoNeighbor wrote:We should start playing Pacific now in advance of them joining the conference. Idaho, Idaho State, Eastern Washington, Montana State, other UC and Cal State schools, Seattle U...

NoPoNeighbor wrote:

DoubleDipper wrote:Ohio IS probably first, and I think we'll see one or two non-D-1games this year. Rev has said there's a fine line between tough and too tough a schedule.

There are plenty of D-I teams out there that we have a real opportunity to compete with and beat. I'd rather see us play a couple more games against Big Sky, WAC or Big West teams than fill in the schedule with D-II and D-III teams.

Sure, let's play a couple of D-II or NAIA teams as exhibitions, but then when the regular season starts we should be playing teams at our own level. We should start playing Pacific now in advance of them joining the conference. Idaho, Idaho State, Eastern Washington, Montana State, other UC and Cal State schools, Seattle U...

PurpleGeezer wrote:

bballguy wrote:Ohiu went 29-8 losing to UNC in OT in the sweet sixteen last year. Good Luck!

How many points are coming back?

Hmm. 16 of those wins we're teams with RPI's worse than 205.

No, wait. My bad. I see that included in those low RPI teams there were losses to #243 and # 246.

Looks like luck happens everywhere.

Ohio: The Bobcats lost coach John Groce to Illinois ... and that’s pretty much it. As returning lineups go, you can’t do much better than this. All 10 of Ohio’s rotation players from last season -- which ended in a Sweet 16 finish, lest we forget -- are back in 2012-13, including star guard D.J. Cooper.

bballguy wrote:Ohiu went 29-8 losing to UNC in OT in the sweet sixteen last year. Good Luck!

6/29/2012 12:21:00 PM

Portland to take Part in Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic

LAS VEGAS, Nev. --- The University of Portland is among the field of teams scheduled to compete at the 12th Annual Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic, which will culminate with two games hosted at the Orleans Arena on December 22-23, 2012. Portland will be joined in Las Vegas by Virginia Tech, Colorado State and Bradley. The Pilots will also host Cal State Bakersfield and North Florida at the Chiles Center on Dec. 17-19 as each participating team will play a total of four games. Mississippi Valley and Georgia Southern are the other two teams scheduled to participate.

Ticket information for the final rounds in Las Vegas is available by contacting the Pilot Box Office at (503) 943-7525. Ticket packages for the eight scheduled final round games in Las Vegas begin at $115.

The Pilots will host Cal State Bakersfield on Monday, Dec. 17 at 7 p.m. and then welcome North Florida on Wednesday, Dec. 19 at 7 p.m.

Regardless of the outcomes from games played on Dec. 17-19, the Pilots will take part in the featured four-team bracket in Las Vegas along with Atlantic Coast Conference power Virginia Tech, 2012 NCAA Tournament participant Colorado State, and Bradley University from the Missouri Valley Conference. Matchups have not yet been determined.

CONTINENTAL TIRE LAS VEGAS CLASSIC TEAM PROFILES:
The Portland Pilots were one of the youngest teams in the nation and played one of the toughest schedules in the country last season en route to a 7-24 overall record and 3-13 mark in the upstart West Coast Conference. With 11 players returning for the 2012-13 season, the Pilots will still be a youthful bunch with only one senior on the roster. Junior forward Ryan Nicholas had a breakout season by leading the Pilots in scoring (11.5) and rebounding (7.6) last season. Sophomores Kevin Bailey, Thomas van der Mars and David Carr all were starting as freshman by the end of year, with Bailey averaging 11.1 points in league play. The return of sophomore center Riley Barker from a knee injury and the addition of a talented four-player freshmen class has Portland expecting to get back to its winning ways. Head coach Eric Reveno, the 2009 WCC and District 9 Coach of the Year, returns for his seventh season on The Bluff. Reveno and the Pilots made three straight postseason appearances and averaged a school record 20 wins per season from 2009-11.

The Virginia Tech Hokies welcome new head coach James Johnson this season. Johnson will guide a team that will return three starters from last season, including second team All-ACC selection Erick Green, who led the Hokies in scoring, averaging 15.6 points per game. Also returning are starters, juniors Jarell Eddie (9.1 ppg) and Cadarian Raines (5.9 ppg. 3.9 rpg), along with sophomores C.J. Barksdale, Robert Brown and Marquis Rankin, who all saw considerable action in their freshmen.

The Colorado State Rams are coming off a 20-12 campaign in which they received their first bid to the NCAA tournament since 2003. New Head Coach Larry Eustachy leads one of the nation's most experienced clubs as four returning starters look to add to its success from last season. One of the country's top backcourts is led by senior guards Wes Elkmeier (15.6 ppg) and Dorian Green (13.5 ppg) as well as one of the nation's leading rebounders in senior forward Pierce Hornung (8.4 rpg).

Geno Ford begins his second season as the head coach of the Bradley Braves following a 7-25 campaign in his first year at the helm in 2011-12. The Braves return seven lettermen, including a pair of all-conference caliber guards in senior Dyricus Simms-Edwards and junior Walt Lemon, Jr. In addition to a four-man recruiting class, Bradley also brings back a pair of big men who sat out last season, 6-foot-9 sixth-year senior Will Egolf and 7-foot-1 redshirt freshman Nate Wells.

NoPoNeighbor wrote:I haven't seen K. Bailey in any of these offseason workout/camp/etc photos over the past couple of months. Is he on campus working out with the team?

Great to have all 15 Pilots back on campus. Glad NCAA lets us work w/them on court. Ideal for those of us who love to teach the game.

mattywizz wrote:It works even easier if you put them on the tractor they were designed for.

dholcombe wrote:Kevin was in yesterdays facebook photos...feel better now?

Every team has some big questions heading into the 2012-13 season.

BYU is no different. Noah Hartsock is gone. Charles Abouo is gone. Demarcus Harrison is on mission and Tyler Haws returns from mission.

They have made six straight NCAA Tournaments, a school record, but were holding their breath as the final names came down.

Here are the big three questions facing BYU this season:

What will BYU get out of the center spot?

Nate Austin would seem to be the natural choice to start at center without Noah Hartsock around. The rising sophomore averaged four points and nearly four rebounds in only 12 minutes.
But he was incredibly foul-prone. Austin fouled out a team-high six times. Six.

This could prove a problem against teams with a offensive-minded center. Saint Mary’s Brad Waldow and Gonzaga’s Sam Dower come to mind.

Brandon Davies could slide over against these teams to provide a bit more of a physical presence down low. 6-foot-11 rising sophomore Ian Harward could also see minutes there after not getting into a single game in 2011-12.

Which Matt Carlino will we see more often? Good or bad Carlino?

For the sanity of the fandom in Provo, I would hope good Carlino but how likely that is to happen is tough to tell.

The good Carlino had incredible stretches but that success could not be sustained. As the season wore on, the bad Carlino appeared more and more often. It was only his first college basketball season and maybe he just got tired. He will have to make adjustments as the league began to make against him last season.

Expect to see better, more controlled performances from Carlino but the 3-for-12 game will still happen.

Straight answer: More good Carlino.

Will they make a seventh straight trip to the NCAA Tournament?

Replacing Noah Hartsock and Charles Abouo will be hard. Nobody is expecting it to be easy. That difficulty to fill those holes could be to the detriment of the Cougars’ early season success.
And remember, BYU barely got in last season and had to play in the 14-seed play-in game. This year could be tougher.

What BYU needs to do is avoid the RPI pitfalls that they have, not only in conference but out of it.

The Cougars struggled more than many originally expected coming into the WCC and some of those teams have continued to improve just by attrition. Let’s safely say they get nine wins without the games against Saint Mary’s or Gonzaga (Pepperdine twice, Portland twice, San Diego once, LMU once, USF twice, Santa Clara once).

San Diego, LMU, and Santa Clara will scary teams for those with aspirations of March basketball. Don’t expect any of them to have a quality RPI but they will give teams a fight. A loss to any one of them, while locally may not be seen as a “bad” loss, could be seen as bad in the eyes of the selection committee.

But for argument’s sake let’s say they get 11 wins (11-5) in conference. Safe bet they get one win in the WCC Tournament, so we have 12 (12-5).

BYU’s OOC is riddled with winnable games and should have no problem getting 12 more (24-5) but they still have some games that could provide some problems. They will face Baylor, Virginia Tech, Utah State, Iowa State, and then play two of the following: Saint Joseph’s, Notre Dame, or Florida State.

They need a marquee win, which really eluded them last season.

Can they get it and who will it be? But then how good will Iowa State be without Royce White? How good is Baylor without Perry Jones and Quincy Acy?

NCAA Tournament? It’s no lock and BYU is probably bubble bound.

Best-case scenario: Portland coach Eric Reveno is one of his profession's most proficient Twitter users, and anyone who actually gets Twitter is guaranteed to warm the cockles of this quasi-tech geek/basketball writer's heart. On the court, unfortunately, things are not looking quite as good. The Pilots finished just 7-24 last season, including a 3-13 record in WCC play. The good news? With leading scorers Tim Douglas, Kevin Bailey and Ryan Nicholas all back, some improvement should be expected. But how much? Five league wins? Six?

Worst-case scenario: The odds of another seven-win-or-worse season seems pretty remote, but anything in single-digit wins territory should count as a worst-case scenario for any program, even one in this lowly position.

Portland: Tim Douglas
Portland won just seven games last season, but the good news is it returns its top three scorers -- Ryan Nicholas, Kevin Bailey and Douglas. All three are important to better results in 2012-13, but the point guard Douglas led the team in usage rate and will have the ball in his hands just as often this season.

PurpleGeezer wrote:...so I think the key is a point who can just do what is required of a point. If he can do that, any other offensive production he gives us is a bonus.

DJ Sherman wrote:This makes the Most Important Player somewhat awkward :

Portland: Tim Douglas
Portland won just seven games last season, but the good news is it returns its top three scorers -- Ryan Nicholas, Kevin Bailey and Douglas. All three are important to better results in 2012-13, but the point guard Douglas led the team in usage rate and will have the ball in his hands just as often this season.

To Brennan's defense, the announcement was made the day before the Sweet 16, so it's easy to forget about the schools not in contention.

Since Tim has transferred, who is your replacement for "most important player"? Nicholas the veteran; van De Mars, the Gouda, Netherlands native, the recovered Barker, the PG Committee ruled by Oskar Reinfelds the result of Riga, or someone else?

Stonehouse wrote:In my mind, I feel like I "know" what I'm going to get from Nicholas, Van der Mars, and Bailey. There's room for improvement and development, absolutely (especially with VDM and Bailey), but I feel like they are solid and reliable.

Stonehouse wrote:Carr proved he can handle the ball, and really came around as a shooter as the season progressed. He was a typical freshman - flashes early, some struggles adjusting to D1, but showing true progress by the end of the year. He's a very capable cog in the wheel, and I expect him to start at PG..

Stonehouse wrote:The big wild cards are Tanner Riley and Dorian Cason. If those two get locked in and consistently producing, we're a totally different team with multiple scoring options.