Will Porter be gone if they run the table in conference?

And by run the table of course I mean 0-16. I don't think it's very likely, maybe 15-20% chance. But not impossible by any means.

Hmm, what is the opposite of running the table? Falling off the table?

Even going 2-14, for a total of 7 wins vs. D-1, with a very weak pre-conference strength of schedule would be quite difficult to defend, especially when looking at the trend/direction of the program.

PilotNut wrote:Hmm, what is the opposite of running the table?  Falling off the table?  

Even going 2-14, for a total of 7 wins vs. D-1, with a very weak pre-conference strength of schedule would be quite difficult to defend, especially when looking at the trend/direction of the program.

I think 2-14 is the most likely result. Can't see a road win but expecting to win 2 of the 3 home games against Pepperdine, Santa Clara, LMU. Pretty bleak- 311 in Pomeroy, and when I look at the other teams below 300 I don't think this team should be anywhere near this bad based on the talent they have.

I’d imagine 0-16, 1-15, 2-14, 3-13 would all carry pretty much the same weight in evaluations.

Just a reminder about last year at about this time. It looked pretty much just as bleak (Kenpom ~310, just as now) and the Pilots actually went on a nice run with four wins in six WCC games.

Your eternal optimist,
Dean M.

Dean Murdoch wrote:
Just a reminder about last year at about this time. It looked pretty much just as bleak (Kenpom ~310, just as now) and the Pilots actually went on a nice run with four wins in six WCC games.

Your eternal optimist,
Dean M.

Your optimism must include a denial of facts right at least the selective memory of them

We were 2-6 in conference last January. By the end of the first 10 games we were 4-10.

After that we didn’t win another game.

?

Your post is true. As is mine.

The Pilots went WWLLWW over a six-game span that started almost exactly one year ago to the day. That’s four wins in six games!

Hah.

So the conference cup was 22% full last year. That would be a goal to reach this year.

3-13 is the absolute best case. I'm not even sure about 2-14 now- there's a real chance they win 1 or even 0. It just doesn't look like anyone has a clue what to do out there.

I can't quite wrap my head around how this team can be worse this year than they were last year. We graduated Hartwich and Tyson, and everyone else should be a year older and a year better. But somehow the team overall has regressed.

I'm no longer convinced that the talent level on this team is actually much of an improvement over Reveno's teams. Outside of Shaver and Walker, everyone else seems very mediocre, and many seem to be getting worse. McSwiggan was a big time player who we were lucky to get. Diabate was supposed to be WCC Newcomer of the Year. Tryon was supposed to be a great offensive weapon. Clark was supposed to provide a huge lift and be the best player on the team. Wrong.

Clark has played in a couple d1 games. He's basically a freshman as far as on court experience. Don't judge him yet. I think these players can be better with better or maybe even less in game coaching. When Porter yells weave it's my least favorite part of the game. It means he wants the guys to run around wasting energy outside the 3 point like without progressing the offense as far as I can tell. I'm not sure what the hell it's supposed to do outside of being a practice drill.

Call a real play or run some kind of weave that involves an actual screen and option to move someone towards the hoop.

Here's how I'd explain Dean's comments about 0, 1, 2, and 3 wins in conference:  

Is it time to go?
3-13 - Whispers
2-14 - Open conversation
1-15 - Debate with a few sentimental Porter fans
0-16 - Screaming consensus

If the end of the season is anything like last night, I believe not only will there be consensus, they'll be a loss of season ticket holders (that discussion has already started in this household).

How many season ticket holders are there, anyway? And how many of those are just Gonzaga fans who buy the whole season in order to attend the GU game?

...and get tickets to the tournament on the UP allotment. ( include BYU fans here)

Had the usual GU postgame late-night T-Room gathering on Saturday with some UP and GU grads (and two outliers from WSU), and of course the subject of UP’s players and how well most thought UP played against GU came up.  But also mentioned over and over was the general demise of UP’s MBB program post-Reveno. Most thought the players were better, but the play of the team is not.

Although most guys around the table are fans of Terry Porter from his NBA days, the general agreement was the team should no longer be called the Portland Pilots, but the “Porter Pilots,” as TP and his sons now own the team and its fortunes.  The consensus was several players are discouraged because they believe TP is coaching the team only to coach his sons, and when they move on, he’ll move on, but it was also noted that during the GU game only Franklin played, and that was for limited minutes.

Some also speculated (with some evidence provided by a GU grad), that TP has turned away a high-quality prep school kid, two transfers, and a grad-transfer, all of whom are perimeter players, because they would likely have pushed his sons down the rotation.  This has been speculated on PN before, but the GU grad, who has several “ins” regarding recruiting, mentioned specific names.

All our talk was of course just beer-fed speculation and supposition, but if hard-core fans of UP and GU MBB strongly believe TP is not helping the progress of the team, one must wonder what those inside the program, including the players, coaches and administration, are thinking.

Hate to say it, DD, but your post above borders on slander. Putting "beer-fed speculation and supposition" in writing here on a public website in order to disparage Coach Porter and his sons is shameful.

"TP and his sons now own the team and its fortunes"?!?!
"The consensus was several players are discouraged..."?!?

So some drunk fans were able to form a "consensus" about the mental/emotional state of "several players," and also divine that the cause of their being "discouraged" is that those players "believe TP is coaching the team only to coach his sons"? Are these guys "hard-core fans" or mind-reading psychics?

Now, turning to this insider knowledge that Porter turned away a total of four perimeter players. First, shame on you for reporting drunken hearsay in order to malign Coach Porter. Second, this info is obviously garbage because Porter has already recruited other guards who are better than and play far more minutes than his sons. And third, even IF these alleged rejections of potential recruits are true, well OF COURSE he turned away those players. The roster is completely full. No more scholarships available! Are you advocating that anytime a "better" player comes along the coaches should revoke a scholarship or roster spot of an existing player who isn't as good? Bringing on an additional player wouldn't just "push his sons down the rotation," it would push someone out of a scholarship!

And finally, I take issue with your historical revisionism about "the general demise of UP's MBB program post-Reveno." I understand that it is convenient for your crusade to undermine Porter, but it is again shameful to pretend that the program was doing well under Reveno, only to fall into a "general demise" under Porter. You know full well that that is 100% inaccurate. Under Reveno the program had run into an absolute dead end and was floundering at the bottom of the conference year after year. I am not going to bother looking up the rankings, records and statistics to make this point, because you already know it is true. If you need reminding, go back and re-read the threads on Pilot Nation from the end of the 2015-16 season, as we were debating Reveno's tenure and whether or not UP should fire him.

I encourage you to delete or revise your previous post, which I believe is below the dignity of a Pilots fan.

Good post, nice to see someone else so passionate about Coach Porter and his program!  I’m very much in favor of TP turning the program around before tournament time, and if not this year, then next season.

Just a little background on the individuals in the discussion…. all are very familiar with the program, even the GU and WSU guys, and all are UP season ticket holders.  Two have grandsons, one a son and one a granddaughter at UP who have classes with or live in the dorms with MBB players…. so obviously they have opportunities to talk about team morale and motivations which they have apparently shared with their parents.

The way the GU recruiting guru explained it to me, last season Franklin was a walk-on, but when a kid wanted to grad-transfer-in this fall Franklin was suddenly on scholarship.  Sorry no scholarships available!  You might also recall that when an inbound scholarship recruit did not qualify academically, another scholarship was available, but it was decided to go with only 12 scholarship players this year and not bring in another transfer who wanted to come to UP.  Apparently, the prep school kid is/was looking to come in next season  
.
I admit that neither I nor anyone else at the table Saturday looked at how Reveno’s teams were rated vs. Porter’s teams, so I was curious to see how they compared using their respective W/L records and KenPom.com rankings:

2013-14 15-16 (#111) Reveno
2014-15 17-16 (#134) Reveno
2015-16 12-20 (#206) Reveno
2016-17 11-22 (#280) Porter
2017-18 10-22 (#272) Porter
2018-19 currently 7-13 (#320) Porter

As I mentioned, the guys around the table “thought the players were better, but the play of the team was not….”
 
I certainly don’t mean to disparage or slander anyone, especially the school, team, and program I care so much about, but if statements are true, I doubt they are slander.

I really don’t want to get into a running gun battle over the program with anyone on PN, so I’ll simply take a timeout from writing about what I hear about TP’s program and whether I or my friends think he’ll “be gone if they run the table in conference.”

I'm not going to get into the other stuff in DD's post.

But this thing, right here....

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           \ /

2013-14 15-16 (#111) Reveno
2014-15 17-16 (#134) Reveno
2015-16 12-20 (#206) Reveno
2016-17 11-22 (#280) Porter
2017-18 10-22 (#272) Porter
2018-19 currently 7-13 (#320) Porter

Woodless 2.0 wrote:I'm not going to get into the other stuff in DD's post.

DoubleDipper wrote:2013-14 15-16 (#111) Reveno
2014-15 17-16 (#134) Reveno
2015-16 12-20 (#206) Reveno
2016-17 11-22 (#280) Porter
2017-18 10-22 (#272) Porter
2018-19 currently 7-13 (#320) Porter

It should be noted that Reveno's teams finished the season #279 and #258 in 2011-12 and 2012-13 following the three "golden years" of recent Pilots basketball (sigh) so it's not like his teams were immune to the recent lows even well into his tenure at UP.

wrv wrote:As someone mentioned earlier, if there is a change at the top, the formula is not another former NBA player, but someone with actual college coaching experience who earned their stripes coaching the college game. Here, at Portland, we have had our share of failed ex-NBA players.

My hope is that if there is a change in coach at the end of the season, that there is a realization of this... and we can't "afford" to mess this decision up again. The program may need to dig a little deeper to spend a little more. It would appear that our WCC peers are doing this, based upon the last round of coaching hires... are we going to keep up?

This is where we all come in. We are fans of the program--we need to make sure that the Athletic Department is aware of our opinions on investing in, and improving, the program.

wrv wrote: it could be years still if they cannot afford a Porter buyout.

I don't see the buyout money being a problem, assuming he's on a 5 year deal and paid comparably to other lower tier WCC schools (everyone besides the top 3 basically).

There is clearly something wrong here. The fundamentals are appalling and don't seem to be improving. How many times are guys going to leave their feet early for no reason when they have inside position on the glass, why do the big men always bring the ball down, why are they running that pointless weave, etc.

Gonzaga game aside (where the Pilots played their best game of the season I thought), this team has been trending lower while other teams get better. I can't believe 322 Kenpom is commensurate with this team's talent. Not saying they're the most talented team, but has anyone seen Santa Clara and Pepperdine? I would take Pilots personnel over theirs for sure.

Unfortunately in my opinion UP administration has no interest in doing what is needed to improve this problem. This present team has very little D 1 talent. The basketball talent is lacking and in order to make the team look significantly better they provide an absolutely weak schedule. Look at the wins this year. Lewis and Clark, Multnomah, USC Upstate, Florida A&M etc.

UP needs to hire a younger coach with the enthusiasm to recruit and be successful. If he leaves at least he leaves the team improved.

JimmAlacki wrote:Unfortunately in my opinion UP administration has no interest in doing what is needed to improve this problem. This present team has very little D 1 talent. The basketball talent is lacking and in order to make the team look significantly better they provide an absolutely weak schedule. Look at the wins this year. Lewis and Clark, Multnomah, USC Upstate, Florida A&M etc.

UP needs to hire a younger coach with the enthusiasm to recruit and be successful. If he leaves at least he leaves the team improved.

I agree Jimm... good first post. Welcome aboard!

I have had season tickets for the past 4 years. I have attended UP games for several decades. It's sad watching the attendance to drop to less than 1,000. Student support is non existent. Chiles Center is a nice friendly environment.

I do concur with the concern that UP drastically inflated the recruiting success.

One thing that disturbed me was watching Jazz Johnson leave. I am afraid that those players that are D1 like Walker and Shaver will get frustrated and go elsewhere.

I checked middle of last week and it looks like Jazz is getting almost 30 minutes a game at Nevada. He'd be a solid contributor if he were still around. The question is...which current player would we not have recruited if he stayed? I suspect the answer to that will always remain a mystery.