Idaho St @ UP Tuesday @ 7 and Sac St. @ UP Saturday @ 7

I've been to Pocatello, and can tell you it is no surprise that Idaho St. hasn't played a game at home since November 16th....and has yet to play a D1 opponent at home this season.

The Bengals come into tonight's game with a record of 2-4, but 0-4 against D1 schools.  Ken Pomeroy ranks them at #335 in the nation (the Pilots are now at #196 after their loss to BSU), and expects the Pilots to prevail by 14 points.

The Las Vegas line started out favoring the Pilots by 14.5, but that has dropped to 12.5 with an over/under of 155 this afternoon.

So far, the Pilots have won the games they were supposed to win, but as the guys start cramming for finals, now is not the time to let up against an opponent with nothing to lose....except heading back to Pocatello.

* Idaho State dropped games to Washington State, Denver, Utah and Lamar.
* Ali Faruq-Bey (17.5) and Ethan Telfair (14.0) are the leading scorers for the Bengals.
* The Bengals finished last season 7-23 overall and 4-14 in the Big Sky Conference. Idaho State has just five players on the roster with previous Division I experience and are picked to finish 12th (out of 12) in their league's preseason poll.

Sacramento St. on Saturday should be a much tougher game, but let's see the Pilots get this one under the belts before outlining that game....

We have the halftime lead, but it's been ugly.

The good news . . . real m&m's in the Pilot Club!

Yuck.

The Bengals get 3 shots off in the last 10 seconds to win it... the Pilots inability to rebound strikes again.

This is a very disappointing and ugly home loss against a previously D-I winless team.    

If we are going to talk about how tough it is to win on the road in other games, well then we really need to winning games like this at home when the other team is the road team...

Oh! I keep fogetting that Reveno is a big man coach. It's time for him to go.

Formula for a very bad loss:
- make lots of unforced turnovers to allow a team shooting near 20% to hang close in the 1st half;
- allow a 3pt specialist to get open looks and get hot in the 2nd half;
- have your bigs go weak to the rim several times, not finishing shots;
- miss key free throws late in the game;
- go small on the last defensive play, so when your big defends the shooter, there's no one to get a rebound, and allow a tip basket;
- on last chance possession, don't inbounds it to your all-conference point who has multiple walk-off winners;
- inbounds it to a true freshman, who losses the ball so you don't even get a shot off.

After much thought and deliberation.....

I'm going to have to get through this season by thinking of the Pilots as a sort of lost cause comedy of errors, rather than a serious team to get emotionally invested in.

At this rate, Reveno's best argument for saving his job will be Chier Maker waiting-in-the-wings. That won't be enough.

One thing I noticed last night... The offense has a really hard time getting into a rhythm, and I think that is because of over-substituting. Marshall is never in the game for more than 4 minutes at a time. Barreno is yanked out repeatedly. We've got skilled guys who just can't get comfortable and get going because they are up and down and in and out constantly.

Let's pick our 5 best players and give them a chance to succeed. Give them a chance to get into a rhythm and play together as a consistent unit! Then the subs can come in and provide energy for specific moments. Last night we had 7 guys who played between 7-14 minutes. How is that helping the team? It might be an interesting experiment, but it is not working.

In the post-game radio show, Coach Johnson drew the short straw and had to talk about the game.  He mentioned that they could never find a line-up that could play consistent. Guess that's why they subbed so much.  But it did seem that several times as soon as a guy would make a basket, he'd get subbed out.

Oh well, someone told me it's just college kids playing a game.  Sure a good thing I don't bet on it.

Has UP ever done well around exam time in early December?

I can't think of a season, not even this one.

http://www.portlandpilots.com/news/2009/11/30/MBB_1130090922.aspx

wrv wrote:Let's choose our best players and give them extended minutes.

~~~~~~~~

Thought Rashard Jackson looked ready to get more minutes.

You think he's one of the best players right now?

Geezaldinho wrote:

wrv wrote:Let's choose our best players and give them extended minutes.

~~~~~~~~

Thought Rashard Jackson looked ready to get more minutes.

You think he's one of the best players right now?

I thought he gave the team some much needed energy yesterday, but I don't think he's one of the best players.

For some reason (maybe finals approaching) the team just looked lethargic and disinterested last night.

I need to go back and watch the final few seconds again, particularly the last possession to see how it played out, but how the heck did Wintering not have the ball in his hands? I forget if there was a pass in there or not; I was too busy watching in horror.

PilotNut wrote:I need to go back and watch the final few seconds again, particularly the last possession to see how it played out, but how the heck did Wintering not have the ball in his hands?  I forget if there was a pass in there or not; I was too busy watching in horror.  

Nope, Jazz just brought it down court and abruptly stopped at about the 3-point line as if to pull up to shoot, or more likely to find someone closer to the basket to pass the ball to.

Unfortunately, when Jazz stopped, the ball did not.....66-65.

I think there were a number of coaching/lineup decision that, in hindsight, could have been handled a lot better, but I also think Alec was for the second game in a row fatigued, and the staff may have considered Jazz the better choice to shoot....but certainly not to pass based upon Alec's ability to find the open man (usually).

Wasn't Alex in the corner for a 3?

I thought that was where Jazz was trying to go.

I seem to remember Alec running down court, and only Jazz was available to take the inbounds pass.  In my mind, Alec has to take that ball himself and find an open shooter, or take the shot.  I don't know if that was the coaching instructions, or if he just left it to Jazz.  Either way, I disagree with that strategy.

I watched the final few minutes and have a couple thoughts:

First, after Gabe made the 2 free throws with 23 seconds left and the Pilots up 1 Rev called timeout which ended up being our last.  This made us unable to call a timeout after the made basket.  

Second, after the tip in Alec clearly took off expecting Jazz to receive the in-bounds pass.  With no timeouts you would want to get the ball in to go right away to not let the defense setup.

Third, on the first tip there was clearly over the back (push) by the ISU player who tipped it against Gabe not called.  Either way all players needed to crash the board and if couldn't get the rebound, tip it away from the basket.  Only player around for the second tip in was Bryce and got out jumped.


Either way this game never should have been close enough for Idaho State to win it in the end.  That first half was some of the worst basketball I have ever seen at the college level.  There were so many unforced errors by the Pilots that was really hard to watch.  I don't even want to spend the time to watch it again.

The substitution pattern definitely seemed awkward.  Only 20 minutes combined for Barreno & Hartwich.  It would have been nice to see one of them show some offense against a smaller team.  Coach Johnson mentioned in the post game show that team has not had much time in between games and keeping up with classes.  You could definitely see the team was mentally fatigued.

It also seems when this team missed a few shots in a row they get timid to take shots they would otherwise normally take.  It may also have been the zone defense.  The Pilots offense sure got stagnant against it.

Another item I noticed from the box score - Bryce had 12 points in the 2nd half but did not even attempt a shot in the final 7 1/2 minutes of the game. As a senior captain, Bryce needs get more assertive at the end of games.

The last 3 losses are tough on the fans side - 2 by 1 point and the BSU game was tied at the 4 minute media time out.  Young team learning how to close out games.

2002Pilot wrote:Young team learning how to close out games.

That's one take on it. Or: Another Reveno-coached team unable to close out games. This has been a consistent problem for the Pilots over the last few years, regardless of how many seniors are on the roster.

Interesting, the UP coaches' scouting report predicted an up-and-down the court up-tempo game, but in reality it was the lowest scoring with the fewest number of possessions in game for the Pilots this year.

Only 67 possessions vs. Idaho St. after averaging close to 75 possessions in the nine game prior, and 65 points after averaging 79.

Was it the match-up zone defense or poor preparation and poor play by the Pilots?  Could be it was all three.....

wrv, that sounds like a great topic for a question on the Coach's Show on Monday nights... hear the answer direct from the horse's mouth.

Game Day!!

Sacramento St. and the Pilots face off for the 3rd time in two seasons.....

• The Hornets (6-2) have had an impressive start to the season, including a season-opening win at Arizona State. Sacramento State also has notable wins over Seattle, UC Davis and Pacific, with losses coming to South Dakota and on the road at UC Davis (yes, they've played UC Davis twice this season).
• Three Hornets are averaging double figures led by Marcus Graves (15.4).
• The Pilots handed the Hornets their lone home defeat of the year (80-75) at the beginning of last season, but in one of the worst games UP played last season, Sacramento St. then defeated the Pilots in the first round of the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament at the Chiles Center (73-66)....what an ugly way that was for our seniors to finish their collegiate careers.

After last Tuesday's ugly/stunning lost to Idaho St., the Pilots now find themselves down to #218/351 in Ken Pomeroy's computer, while Sac. St. is ranked at #198.

The current line in Las Vegas favors the Pilots by 5.5 points with an O/U of 150.  

Personally, I just hope the Pilots win!!!......regardless of the score.

As most of us are aware, this has been "Dead Week" at UP.....and from talking to a number of students yesterday, they all think it is named that because they are all so dead from turning in so many papers and projects.  At one time, "Dead Week" was supposed to be a time when instructors were not supposed to introduce new material but were to simply wrap up the semester in review before finals (which begin this coming Monday).

So, if the student body at large is "dead" it does not bode well for the Pilots players tonight, but at the one practice I did watch this week, it was upbeat and full of energy.....so we'll just have to see.

Pilots 81 - 73, win by 8.  The team energy was much better than last Tuesday.  First half shooting was on fire.  The shots wouldn't fall in the second half, but the defense was pretty strong all night. 

Too many turnovers (20), but 11 of those were by the bigs, and 3 others were by our Frosh PG.  Bryce was the steadying influence when the Sac St press started giving the Pilots trouble.

It appears the Id St game was an anomaly. FWIW, Boise St was up big on Oregon tonight, and hung on for the win.  Pilots played them even for 36 minutes.

Jason Todd did not play; he broke his nose earlier in the day.  Rashad Jackson started, and played strong defense. D'Marques played when coach wanted offense.  Will Jason be Wally Pipped? 

Eleven players played, ten with double figure minutes.  Sac St only had seven players in double figure minutes.  That may have played into some fatigue for Sac St, as they pressed a lot in the 2nd half, and Pilots took control of the boards.

Excellent recap, 7587......

Eighty possessions tonight (best this season against a D1 opponent) and 81 points.....a much better performance than Tuesday night.

The big guys did an excellent job of crashing the boards and disrupting the Hornets inside.  Ray, Philipp, and Colin all brought great energy to the game and Gabe is really beginning to improve his defense....oh, and his 17 points tonight were a career high.

The player of the match was definitely Alec because he was able to break the press and get to line 16 times.  The Pilots are in the bottom 25 in the nation at attempted and made free-throws, so having the Pilots go to the line 33 times tonight was easily a season high.

Honorable mention goes to Bryce who played with great calmness and leadership when the ship got a little out of control during the second half.

With finals week and the Far West Classic and WCC play looming, it's going to be a very tough stretch for the Pilots before Christmas.