Gonzaga @ Pilots Saturday @ 6:30 on ESPN2

Not sure why there were so many empty seats. From what I could tell they sold more tickets than last year as the students weren't around so they didn't reserve extra student space in the bleachers. There seemed to be more Gonzaga fans as a % of the crowd than the last couple of years to me. I'd say it was about 50/50. Perhaps the season ticket holders purchased a bunch of extra seats for the game before public availability and then didn't end up finding people to use them? Who knows.

In future years I would suggest posting on here if you need a ticket and can't find one. There is a good chance that there is a guy who knows a guy who heard of someone sitting two rows away with an extra ticket.

That said...an anonymous source who sits next told me that he was talking to a reliable source prior to the game that said Kevin Bailey will be playing "next game". We'll call the reliable source KB for anonymity.

Gonzaga's on-court staff needed extra chairs last evening.....

up7587 and I were counting the number of guys in coats and ties on the GU bench last evening and came up with 13 (plus one female who is the head trainer for the men's team).

Checking GU's website, the head coach, the three assistants, the trainer, and the DBO are listed....but no one else.  So, assuming the team travels with their strength and conditioning coach and a couple of managers, who were all the rest?

Checking with one of my Spokane buddies, they are "student assistant coaches."  I spoke briefly to one of those student coaches last evening, ex-NBA player Adam Morrison, and when I asked what he was doing these days, he simply replied, "Going to school."  But watching him during the game it was pretty obvious he was Domantas Sabonis' personal coach during the timeouts.

After checking further with my buddy, who by the way is usually correct about 50% of the time, I'm told that Adam and the others are actually on full-ride scholarships at GU to go to school and mentor and coach the basketball players.  Hmm, the NCAA allows only three assistants, but will also allow ex-NBA players to be student assistants?

I'm guessing with a big enough budget a school can do just about anything.....so I guess this shouldn't surprise me.

Geezer, you like to dig into stuff like this....what are the rules?

I've been critical of Sharp's shooting this season, but he has obviously been much better over the past couple of weeks. Therefore, I cannot comprehend why Reveno did not have him on the floor very much in the last ten minutes of the game, when we clearly needed some 3-pointers. In a game like this, I'm surprised he only made three 3-point attempts.

In the the closing minutes, neither Sharp nor Tyson were on the floor (until Sharp came in for the last 45 seconds or so...). Instead we kept feeding the post, which allowed Gonzaga to put VDM and Voldy on the line. What were the coaches thinking?!

jumpstop wrote:.....ended up being my worst nightmare:  a single ticket, in the bleachers, THE ONLY PORTLAND FAN SURROUNDED BY AN ENTIRE SECTION OF GONZAGA FANS ! It was frustrating after all that to look out and see hundreds of open seats throughout the building.

Well, given the circumstances, I'm assuming you moved into one those empty seats by halftime or sooner!!

As we often get after the students in this forum.....I want to give a shout-out to the large number of noisy and standing students at last night's game.  They could be heard, and they made a difference.....especially during the second half run when the GU fans got into it.  With classes still not in session for another week....it was a good show of school spirit and pride in their basketball team.

Six dance team members out of the 11-13 that are normally at games was also a good showing considering the circumstances...hmm, and were they all blondes?  That's all ESPN was showing!!

Didn't see very many young band members last evening....but PPT could tell us more about the band's makeup this year. Still the best band in the WCC....but with a little less volume last night.  

NoPoNeighbor wrote:I've been critical of Sharp's shooting this season, but he has obviously been much better over the past couple of weeks. Therefore, I cannot comprehend why Reveno did not have him on the floor very much in the last ten minutes of the game, when we clearly needed some 3-pointers. In a game like this, I'm surprised he only made three 3-point attempts.

In the the closing minutes, neither Sharp nor Tyson were on the floor (until Sharp came in for the last 45 seconds or so...). Instead we kept feeding the post, which allowed Gonzaga to put VDM and Voldy on the line. What were the coaches thinking?!

I don't think the 3 pointer was in Reveno's original game plan. It was a good ten minutes into the game before we even attempted any. Before that we kept futilely feeding the post with no result. Once we started taking 3's and making them the post opened up much more and our bigs were able to make some buckets as well. Few was pretty furious with his players at one point screaming at them to take away the 3 after we started using it. So it was also clearly a defensive emphasis of Gonzaga's to defend it well as Few thought it dangerous.

I would have liked to see a few attempts earlier in the game, but don't think it needed to be emphasized more late as we were doing a good job chipping away at their lead using a combo of outside and inside shooting at that point making it hard for them to solely concentrate on defending either. If we had started jacking up threes and ignoring the inside they could have easily taken away any chance at us making a high percentage of those 3's.

After speaking with a couple of the players after the game, it seemed the consensus was they, "we just came out flat" during the first half.

But my question was, "how do you come out "flat" against GU."

I know all coaches take pride in preparing their team for games, but IMO sometimes a team can be over-prepared, and they work so hard at going with the game PLAN, they pass up opportunities their skill and athleticism can take advantage of....but might be outside the game PLAN.

It seemed pretty obvious the plan was work the ball inside as much as possible, which we all know opens up the outside when it's working....but Karnowski is not your normal everyday load in the middle....the guy will be an NBA player.  In the second half, after Karnowski's 3-pointer (the first of his NCAA career), I think he was so stoked with his new skill he suddenly considered himself a guard and the Pilots pounced and the PLAN began to work.

I agree with the end-of-game strategy....we didn't need a bunch of 3-point attempts, but it seems the Pilots could have fouled someone besides Pangos.

DoubleDipper wrote:The UP offense is fine....we know that others will pick up the slack when their teammates go cold, but UP cannot let GU get any kind of run going where the Pilots are expending all their energy playing catch-up.....

Grab rebounds, get stops, equal GU's points in the paint, and go to the free throw line....and the Pilots will win!

I just took my first look at the stats.....we did fine in all the critical areas except one: GU went on first half runs and the Pilots had to play catch-up.

If NCAA games were 48 minutes in length the Pilots might have beaten BYU and GU, but they're not!

DoubleDipper wrote:

DoubleDipper wrote:The UP offense is fine....we know that others will pick up the slack when their teammates go cold, but UP cannot let GU get any kind of run going where the Pilots are expending all their energy playing catch-up.....

Grab rebounds, get stops, equal GU's points in the paint, and go to the free throw line....and the Pilots will win!

I just took my first look at the stats.....we did fine in all the critical areas except one: GU went on first half runs and the Pilots had to play catch-up.

If NCAA games were 48 minutes in length the Pilots might have beaten BYU and GU, but they're not!

Interesting to note that even with our dour start offensively, we scored more efficiently against GU than any other team has all year (per KenPom via Rev's twitter).

DoubleDipper wrote:Gonzaga's on-court staff needed extra chairs last evening.....

up7587 and I were counting the number of guys in coats and ties on the GU bench last evening and came up with 13 (plus one female who is the head trainer for the men's team).

Checking GU's website, the head coach, the three assistants, the trainer, and the DBO are listed....but no one else.  So, assuming the team travels with their strength and conditioning coach and a couple of managers, who were all the rest?

I wasn't counting or noticing who everyone was, but here's a start Few, Daniels, Michaelson, Krause, Lloyd, Nyland (the coaches/trainer on the website), Mike Hart (who I think is a graduate assistant), Morrison (who was a graduate assistant last year and is a volunteer assistant this year), and maybe redshirt Ryan Edwards, injured Josh Perkins, and transfer Eric McLellan (eligible for the next set of games) if you were counting those guys. Beyond that I'm not sure, maybe some student managers?

I thought the Pilots looked good. If they can get Bailey back with his legs under him, they could really make some noise. Always by far my second favorite WCC team.

DoubleDipper wrote:


Didn't see very many young band members last evening....but PPT could tell us more about the band's makeup this year. Still the best band in the WCC....but with a little less volume last night.  

We had a good amount of students for being in the middle of vacation, and we added a couple more from another group that plays around town. We've been covering the games over break pretty well so far. There are officially something like 60 on the band roster, divided into two groups who alternate games.

jake....thanks for the explanation about the "suits" on the GU bench.....interesting.  I suppose other big basketball programs have similar setups with student and volunteer assistants, I just wasn't familiar with it.

UP and GU both have the normal compliment of four coaches as allowed by the NCAA.  GU has DBO, while UP has a "Special Assistant to the Head Coach".....neither of whom are allowed to coach the players.

Someplace in the rulebook there must be a provision that allows student and volunteer assistants in addition to the normal compliment of four coaches.  With that in mind, there are always a number of "experts" in forums like this who know more than the coaches.....maybe there is a volunteer slot or two available at UP.  

Hey, I do my coaching from the "cheap seats"!

I don't often post, but felt obligated here.  I don’t know what player volunteers that “we just came out flat” or if that’s a general conclusion or opinion .. but I’d hope that stays internal to be honest.  Speaking for only one kid out there, there’s no way he's a part of coming out “flat”.  That’s an excuse to me.  

Down 5 with 2 minutes left, Pangos hits a shot off a great pass from Karno.  Next possession, Karno with the dunk off a nice feed from Pangos, he hits the FT and it’s game over.  What led to the last two minutes surely can be debated, I guess that’s what message boards are for.  

I prefer to give credit to Gonzaga and to our guys for the battle back.  Sure I'd prefer not to be down 15 at half too, but I also don't give “coming out flat” the time of day.

Agreed, that's why I asked the question, "How do you come out flat against GU?"

From the Oregonian on Sunday morning:

"We came out a little flat, and against a team like Gonzaga, that's going to kill you," said Portland center Thomas van der Mars, who had 17 points and eight rebounds.

Of all the games, how do the Pilots pick this one to come out flat?

"It should never happen, especially at this level. Definitely, should never happen," van der Mars said.

Reveno said it was "surprising. Maybe we're caring too much, trying to be perfect, not relaxing and just playing. We didn't do anything in the first half at a level that can win us the game."

After trailing 43-28 at halftime, Reveno said his advice to the team in the locker room was "to take a mulligan" and try to claim some victories during the second half.

Well, the advice wasn't quite that laid back.

"There was some motivational speaking, yeah," van der Mars said about the halftime adjustments.

Full article here: http://www.oregonlive.com/pilots/index.ssf/2015/01/portland_pilots_second-half_ra.html

DoubleDipper wrote:I want to give a shout-out to the large number of noisy and standing students at last night's game.  They could be heard, and they made a difference.....especially during the second half run when the GU fans got into it.  With classes still not in session for another week....it was a good show of school spirit and pride in their basketball team.:

I migrated to the student section in the final ~6 minutes of the second half and I had a blast over there! I got to woop and holler with some other young alums. Heck, we even yelled at the students in front of us (we were near the top) to stand up and make noise. It took me back to the glory days and I was glad we could be heard!