Pilots @ USF Saturday @ 2 and home vs. Gonzaga on Monday @ 7

Was it really that long ago that UP and USF were always battling for the WCC Championship or WCC Tournament….yep, back in the ‘90’s!

But on Saturday they battle to stay out of last place.

A win tomorrow, for either team, will go part way to avoid last, but if either team can pick up just three or four additional wins, they could avoid the Wednesday game in Las Vegas all together.

We’ve witnessed a definite turnaround of the program of during the last 40 days, now the Pilots need a WCC win! The Pilots are 5-10 (0-2) and the Dons are 7-8 (0-2)….I believe UP can pick up its third road win of the season in San Francisco.

The USF game is live streamed here: http://client.stretchinternet.com/client/usf.portal#

Regarding the game on Monday night in the Chiles Center against Gonzaga….forget about it!

Former UP assistant Kelly Graves has turned the Bulldogs, 12-4 (2-0) into a perennial winner and champion, and there is just no way the young Pilots will be able to keep up….but it will be a good building block for tough games ahead, this year and next.

The game is available in live streamed video at: http://client.stretchinternet.com/client/up.portal#

I have never seen such blatantly poor officiating in a WCC women’s game….and I’ve seen a lot really poor calls in the 21 years I’ve been watching the Pilots women.

Anytime freshman Annika Holopainen scores a career high 29; sophomore Kari Luttinen scores 20; sophomore Jasmine Wooton scores 17; your team has fewer turnovers than the other; you score more field goals than the opponent, and you go on a 16-2 run late in the game, you’d think you’d win, but today the Pilots lost in San Francisco 88-81.

In the end, the Pilots 32 for 76 shooting was not better than 25-55 shooting by USF because the Dons had a literally unbelievable 43 free throw attempts compared to the Pilots paltry 17. Three Pilots fouled out, including C Amy Pupa with just 14 minutes on the court, the point guard played with four fouls much of the game, and it just appeared from the video stream that some of the calls were just god-awful.

The Pilots may end up playing on Wednesday in Las Vegas, but if they play the Dons, and play like they did today….they’ll be playing on Thursday too.

BTW the video streaming in HD with an apparent professional announcer at USF was very impressive. Yes they have commercials, but only during the breaks. They even have a pre and post game show…very nice.

Gonzaga (13-5, 3-1) came to the Chiles Center this evening still feeling the sting of its loss at St. Mary’s on Thursday night, and never let Portland (5-12, 0-4) in the game, beating UP 82-51.

Gonzaga’s head coach, Kelly Graves, is not just a former UP assistant; he’s also the former head coach at St. Mary’s, so you know he was not going to let the frustration of his loss in Moraga happen again in Portland….and it wasn’t close.

The students returned to classes today at UP, but the women will now pack their bags and hit the road for a three game stretch starting with LMU on Saturday afternoon at 2 o’clock.