Pilots @ USD, Saturday, 6PM, Root NW

Last game of the regular season. Start time is early. Since beating the Pilots on January 28th, the Waves have lost 6 of 7, with only an OT win over SCU last Saturday to feel good about. They have 5 conference wins, and 3 of them are against teams that will finish in the top 6; BYU, SCU and LMU. They lost twice to Pacific. And they have been horrifically blown out a couple times: 71-27 vs. SMC and 96-38 vs GU last night.

They play small, and last time the Pilots did not play any big men, trying to match up with them. That resulted in our guys losing the rebounding battle 37-14 in a 16 point loss. I wonder if the coaches will make a strategy change and go big against them. Couldn't be worse, could it? They average 34.5% from 3Pt, so play big and zone them.

Well, this game is officially redundant. USD is locked into the 7 seed after Pepperdine's loss to USF today.

Did the stream suddenly cut out or is it just me? Radio stream & stats are fine but radio is noticeably delayed over here so it's kinda weird to see stats before the radio call. It looks like they had the same problem for the Zags/Torero's game on Thursday.

Other notes from the Pilots twitter:

No Xavier Hallinan tonight. He is back at the team hotel battling the flu.

Pilots were on a 20 point run in the second half, got it to within 4 points, then they let 3-point fouls happen and the Toreros pull away.

No sign of bigs aside from Barreno with 2 fouls within the first 1.5 minutes in the first half. Commentators said that was coach's decision, as apparently Hartwich wasn't good at outside protection. Not sure if that really helped as USD was surprisingly raining 3's all game regardless. Gave them too much space.

Yup, Ray fouled on his first defensive plays, and turned it over when they collapsed on him on his first offensive play. That ended his night.

If it's tough for a team to beat another team three times in a season, and based on last night's performance, the Pilots at least have a chance in Las Vegas.

UP led in almost every statistical category, but the margin of victory came down to USD making a couple more field goals.

Too bad UP 20/20 performance at the line and Tyson's 7/9 and the team's 10/14 from beyond the arc did not result in a win.

DoubleDipper wrote:UP led in almost every statistical category, but the margin of victory came down to USD making a couple more field goals. Too bad UP 20/20 performance at the line and Tyson's 7/9 and the team's 10/14 from beyond the arc did not result in a win.

And only eight turnovers. If you'd given me these numbers before the game, I'd have bet money that we'd be talking about a road win to finish off the regular season.

First half defense was pretty bad.  USD had a guy who had done little to nothing all year go off. And nobody was in Carter's face. Coming back and winning is always hard.

up7587 wrote:USD had a guy who had done little to nothing all year go off.

Kind of like when Neubauer had sat on the bench all year as a freshman, then absolutely torched the Pilots in about 5 minutes of game time? Bleah.

Dean Murdoch wrote:

up7587 wrote:USD had a guy who had done little to nothing all year go off.

Kind of like when Neubauer had sat on the bench all year as a freshman, then absolutely torched the Pilots in about 5 minutes of game time? Bleah.

Yup. Martinez hadn't scored the last two games, had only scored 18 points all year. So in seven minutes he goes 3 of 5 from 3Pt and scores 11 points. Bleah is right.

Reminds me of former Pilots like Tanner Riley.