1/5 Pilots @ Loyola Marymount, 3:00 PM

VIDEO: https://wccsports.com/watch/?id=155531
AUDIO: https://player.radio.com/listen/station/1080-the-fan
STATS: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/statmonitr/?id=232426
PILOTS PREVIEW: https://portlandpilots.com/news/2019/1/4/mens-basketball-pilots-open-wcc-play-at-lmu-on-saturday-afternoon.aspx

PORTLAND (7-8 / 0-0)
PG - JoJo Walker (SO, 6-1)
SG - Marcus Shaver (SO, 6-2)
SF - Franklin Porter (JR, 6-4)
PF - Josh McSwiggan (JR, 6-7)
C - Hugh Hogland (FR, 6-10)
6 - Jacob Tryon (SO, 7-0)
7 - Malcolm Porter (SO, 6-4)
8 - Theo Akwuba (FR, 6-10)
9 - Tahirou Diabate (SO, 6-9)

LOYOLA MARYMOUNT (12-3 / 0-1)
PG - James Batemon (SR, 6-1)
SG - Joe Quintana (SO, 6-2)
SF - Dameane Douglas (FR, 6-7)
PF - Eli Scott (SO, 6-5)
C - Mattias Markusson (JR, 7-3)
6 - Jeffery McClendon (SR, 6-2)
7 - Erik Johansson (JR, 6-6)
8 - Zafir Williams (SO, 6-6)

Huh, usually the starters and rotation are easy to figure out for the other teams when I do these threads but Coach Dunlop appears to change it up quite frequently. Odd for a team that was 12-2 heading into conference play.

LMU was absolutely spanked in the second half by Pepperdine yesterday. This game will be decided on the defensive end for the Pilots - if they can limit Batemon and not let Markusson get the ball inside, they'll at least give themselves a chance on the road. LMU is not nearly as good as their record would otherwise indicate.

Not a good feeling for this one- like 72-58 LMU bad.

An impressive number of TOs for UP here in the first half.

I'm going to invoke the spirit of Carlos Zambrano at this time: We stinks.

Well, the classic post-halftime run against the Pilots happened in the first half this time. 21-4 and counting.

The turnovers are egregious.

Tryon made a three!!!!!

Well, a decent little run got it to 4, lose by 12. Should move up a few spots from 291 in Pomeroy though! This LMU team is not very good.

Missed listening to the game. The stats don't look too bad, until you see 17 TOs. Franklin took 3 shots and had 4 TOs? What was going on there? Rebounds look similar, 26-30, but LMU got 10 on the offensive end to Pilot's 5.

Points in the paint to LMU, 30-16.

McSwiggan had another difficult shooting effort. We need another scoring threat besides Walker and Shaver. Tryon did get 11, but LMU had four guys in double figures.

Theo got 4 fouls in 9 minutes of play. I expect that he is hitting the wall transitioning from high school to college.

JoJo was 13-13 on FTs, the two bigs were 1-5, and nobody else drew a shooting foul.

up7587 wrote:Rebounds look similar, 26-30, but LMU got 10 on the offensive end to Pilot's 5.

10 offensive rebounds for LMU compared to 21 defensive rebounds for the Pilots is still far from great, though. But that didn't cost UP today. What DID cost them has already been mentioned numerous times, turnovers, and several of them happened when LMU wasn't even applying pressure (like the bounce pass to Coach Porter early on that caused the first timeout). 18-8 was the difference in points off TOs, there's your ball game right there.

The Pilots just can't seem to avoid giving up that debilitating run. 21-4 for LMU at one point in the first half as mentioned above, and then they just couldn't find that killer instinct to draw any closer when they managed to make it a five-point game late.

bobtcat2 is right, LMU isn't good and this should be considered a winnable game for the Pilots when they play back in Portland.