USF @ Pilots

How do the coaches get the players up for the game against USF after riding the wave of adrenalin and crowd noise against the #1 team in the nation?

It's natural to have a letdown, but IMO it's up to JoJo, Chase and Isaiah to push their teammates to win a WCC game after 25 losses in a row...

USF is KenPom rated #102 (the Pilots are #273), and the Dons are coming off a home loss to SMC and will be mad as hell.  The Pilots have not beaten the Dons in the Chiles Center in 10 years...February 25, 2010.

Opening odds: USF by 9.5 - o/u 145.

TV on NBC Sports Northwest (Ch. 37 on Portland's Comcast).

DoubleDipper wrote:25 losses in a row...

"What? That can't possibly be right."
*looks it up*

DoubleDipper wrote:The Pilots have not beaten the Dons in the Chiles Center in 10 years...February 25, 2010.

"What? That can't possibly be right."
*looks it up*


Okay Pilots, about time to end a couple of streaks here. If these guys can play with the #1 team in the country for 22 minutes then they can play with the #100 team for a full 40. Limit turnovers, don't get destroyed on the glass, and bring this one home. Basketball's just that easy, right?

Shoot 20 3p shots, hit about 9 of them.

All right. 20 more minutes. Come on Pilots, calm and composed here.

Incredible defense in the first half without getting into foul trouble. Very impressive! But where is White? He’s not even on the bench. Is he quarantined in his dorm with the flu?

Not bad to be leading at halftime without your leading scorer.

NoPoNeighbor wrote:Incredible defense in the first half without getting into foul trouble. Very impressive! But where is White? He’s not even on the bench. Is he quarantined in his dorm with the flu?

Sounds like it from the broadcast.

YES!!!!! PILOTS BABY!!!

I had a feeling about tonight's game. And did it without a key player (NoPo, they said on the broadcast that White was out with the flu).

Whoever runs FTP.com, flip the reset button on that thing

I-is this what it feels like to win a conference game? :')

DoubleDipper wrote:As finals are over, and the grades have been posted by the professors, I give the Pilots a C+ to this point, much better than last year's D grade at the midpoint due to a positive and cohesive culture brought to the team by Isaiah, JoJo, Lavar and Chase.  But that doesn't mean it can't all fall apart when the Pilots come up against three superior teams in Hawaii and then face GU, USF, and BYU in their first three WCC games.

The Pilots could very well go 0-6 during that stretch, and it will interesting to see how this year's team reacts to that possibility after last season's team, and at least one coach, simply hung their head in the face of adversity.

I'd say they reacted better than expected so far after the Hawai'i trip.

Geezaldinho wrote:Where are the four conference wins going to come from?

DoubleDipper wrote:The only projected WCC win for UP is at home against UOP where the Pilots are given a 53% chance with a projected winning score of 69-68.

The other WCC games in the Chiles Center that KenPom considers "competitive," and could go the Pilots way are:
USF a 37% chance for UP, but losing 74-70

There's one.

That was great, betting on the Pilots finally paid off! Dare we dream- 5 conference wins?

Dean Murdoch wrote:YES!!!!! PILOTS BABY!!!

I had a feeling about tonight's game.

Me too. Thankfully, mine didn’t come true.

If they keep playing like this they will win games.


IF...

Before the game I pulled D and Chase aside to inform them it had been 10 years since the Pilots had beaten the Dons on the Chiles Center court...and they were both adamant the losing streak would end tonight...

Chase sought me out after the game, not to gloat, but to simply say, "the streak is over, sorry the fans had to wait so long."

That was the “complete game” this team needed to put together. This one combined with the first half of the Gonzaga game show the potential this team has. A couple quick thoughts:

It’s great to see JoJo playing with confidence again. He seemed to go into a shell a little bit after being benched earlier in the season. Coming into the year, I was expecting him to be our primary scorer. It was great to see him play to that level.

Malcolm continued his impressive campaign. I used to think of him more as a “do all the little things to help a team win” type of player. He plays excellent defense. I don’t know if they keep this stat anywhere, but I would guess he leads the conference in charges drawn. The difference this year is he is proving to be a legitimate scoring threat. Despite having one of the ugliest jump shots I have ever seen, the guy is draining threes at a 38% clip. I’ve heard it suggested that he would move on from the team next year. I hope that isn’t the case because this team would surely miss him.

Hopefully the boys can keep this up. They can compete with anyone in the conference if they play at this level every night. Go Pilots!

bdaddy wrote: . . .Despite having one of the ugliest jump shots I have ever seen, the guy is draining threes at a 38% clip.

Haha, I sat next to an out of town youth coach there with his team. He was telling his players to watch for various skills examples. I suggested he have them look at Taki's jump shot, and not look at Malcolm's.

Nice to have a wonderful young role model you can look up to...

We're always quick to point out poor free-throw shooting, but it's important to acknowledge that excellent free-throw shooting last night made all the difference.  UP: 19-24 79.2%  USF: 6-9 66.7%.

His teammates tell me Lavar is the best shooter on the team...it's just a shame he doesn't get more floor time because he's impressive on both sides of the ball when he's in there.

Last night, in less than 7 minutes he hit both his free-throw attempts, made his only 3-point attempt, and had two rebounds and a steal while disrupting the USF bigs inside.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1213668303580758016

After the Jackson St. game:

DoubleDipper wrote:I really enjoyed the "electricity" on the Tigers' bench...the dancing and flexing was great, and the cheering-on of their teammates throughout the game was something I would love to see the Pilots do, but I'm guessing UP is just too "NBA cool" for that kind of behavior.

Last night it was the Pilots' turn as they were demonstrative and loud on the court and on the bench.

A little flexing, a lot of yelling, a few dance moves, and a lot of shouting of "defense" by the bench got the youth teams yelling too.  

Everyone in the area where I sit noticed this new behavior on the part of the players...I just hope they can keep it up when they lose a few games, the youth teams are not around and the UP students return.

up7587 wrote:

bdaddy wrote: . . .Despite having one of the ugliest jump shots I have ever seen, the guy is draining threes at a 38% clip.

Haha, I sat next to an out of town youth coach there with his team.  He was telling his players to watch for various skills examples.  I suggested he have them look at Taki's jump shot, and not look at Malcolm's.

You can compare player shooting style/techniques here:

Shooting styles? Like that USF underhand layup at 0.32? That's a shot I might be able to do.

DoubleDipper wrote:We're always quick to point out poor free-throw shooting, but it's important to acknowledge that excellent free-throw shooting last night made all the difference.  UP: 19-24 79.2%  USF: 6-9 66.7%.

If you back out D's FTs (1-4), the rest of the team shot 90%!

What a great game last night. Hats off to the Pilots for playing a complete game from tip to buzzer, and for fighting off every one of USF's attempts to take control.

I've been regularly attending Pilots games since I moved back to Portland in 2011. It's nice to finally see them beat USF! I remember a couple of heartbreaking losses in that stretch, especially 2013 and 2014. Both years featured USF hitting buzzer-beating three-pointers -- in 2013 it was to win the game, in 2014 it was to send it to OT.

I love watching Ferebee play. He brings great energy and composure, and is really crafty. It was also great to see our bigs wear down Lull. Yes, he scored his fair share, but he also fouled out and had to spend significant time on the bench with foul trouble, while our three-headed monster of Diabate/Tryon/Akwuba had a consistent interior presence scoring and reboudning... and blocking shots. Too bad that Hogland has been relegated to the bench, though.

Since we've got to play at Provo one way or another, the schedule really is advantageous for the Pilots this week. BYU plays a late 8:00pm game at Saint Mary's on Thursday (that's 9:00 Mountain Time), while the Pilots get the day off and can spend the full week preparing for BYU. I hope coach Meek will sit down with Coach Porter tomorrow morning and share the secrets for winning at the Marriott Center!

bdaddy wrote:It’s great to see JoJo playing with confidence again. He seemed to go into a shell a little bit after being benched earlier in the season. Coming into the year, I was expecting him to be our primary scorer. It was great to see him play to that level.

Getting JoJo going was critical. The 1-6 slide the Pilots went on exactly coincided with his slump/benching. Suddenly he's back in a big way these past two games, and look how the team has done. And...this one was fun -

bdaddy wrote:Malcolm continued his impressive campaign. I used to think of him more as a “do all the little things to help a team win” type of player. He plays excellent defense. I don’t know if they keep this stat anywhere, but I would guess he leads the conference in charges drawn. The difference this year is he is proving to be a legitimate scoring threat. Despite having one of the ugliest jump shots I have ever seen, the guy is draining threes at a 38% clip. I’ve heard it suggested that he would move on from the team next year. I hope that isn’t the case because this team would surely miss him.

Malcolm is quickly evolving into a modern-day Bryce Pressley, right down to the jersey number. It's been fun to see his progression from last year.

Ferebee was outstanding off the bench against Gonzaga and again on Saturday. So was Akwuba against USF. There was a stretch where Akwuba had that dunk, then a huge block on the other end that immediately turned into a transition bucket for Ferebee. Huge plays at a key moment in the game.

And lots of little things done well down the stretch. The only bad part was the back-to-back Ferebee turnovers (maybe the only poor stretch in the last two games for him) which helped the Dons take their only lead of the second half, but he was picked up immediately by his teammates...buckets on the next four possessions to take the lead back for good. And all those critical free throws down the stretch to put it away.

Akwuba, Tryon, and Diabate dealing with Jimbo will be a good warmup for the next game. Yoeli Childs will be even more of a stern test for these guys.

So many good things from Saturday. Happy to see it all come together and looking forward to a few more wins this season!

I re-watched the first half, and the commentator mentioned the good job the Pilots did defending Bouyea and taking him out of the game. He came in as co-leading scorer, ended up with 7. JoJo was a key defender on him, and Chase and Quincy also took turns guarding him.