UP @ LMU, Thursday 1/22/08, 8PM on ESPNU

A big road trip coming up, with the 2 most winnable road games this year, @ LMU and @ Pepp. LMU seems to be playing better lately under new Head Coach Good...

The LMU game will be televised on ESPNU... unfortunately I have Comcast, so I guess I will instead be sitting on a bar stool somewhere...

Hi Pilot Fans,

I’m looking forward to the game on Thursday. Our series all seem to get a little chippy. It will be our first home WCC game and we should be able to get a good crowd in Gersten. Glad Pilots fans will get to see on ESPNU. I’m looking forward to seeing Campbell.

Really great news is Vernon Teel who has been sitting out for about 7 weeks due to injury is scheduled to be back that night. He will be rusty but he was leading the team in scoring (19ppg) before he went out. It will also be nice that we will have a little more depth and we can rest our players more than 30 seconds.

Also a side note, Coach Scholl was named associate Head Coach today.

http://lmulions.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/012009aaa.html

Good news on Teel... he had a broken foot? That seems like a fast recovery...!

Hopefully Ethan Niedermeyer will be back; it seems he re-injured his ankle last week.

He broke his pinky toe five mintues in the game vs. Notre Dame. You guys can probably rest Ethan this weekend.

Ethan was listed as probable in UP's release yesterday. Good news!

Are people going somewhere to watch the game? After last year's debacle at OnDeck, I strongly discourage anyone from going there. (With 10 minutes left in the second half of a late Monday game, they kicked out a table of UP fans an hour before their listed closing time because we were the only people there. Freaking shameful.)

Tom's is always a classic up in NoPo, but I think I'm going to be lazy and walk over to the new Underdog Sports bar on 21st and Glisan. I haven't been in there since it opened a few weeks ago and want to check it out. Come there if you want... I'll be wearing purple!!!

Also... just checked out LMU's site. Sounds like Teel will see some minutes tonight. Good news for the Lions.

Good to hear about Ethan and Teel...

OnDeck. Seriously, that was lame. And, there were other people sitting at the bar, too... so they didnt have a reason to close early...

I just called ahead to Tom's Pizza Pub to confirm that they have ESPNU... which they do.... which is where I am headed!

GO PILOTS!

Nice call, PilotNut. I like our chances against anyone better with Ethan. He seems to provide some toughness and intangibles...

Pilots won 75-59!!

And BOOM goes the dynamite! Nice of them to pull away from a 3-point halftime lead. 15 pts/15 rebs for Nik (he had a double-double by halftime ). Another 12 pts/8 rebs for Robin.

I also tuned in to 970 for the first time on the way home from the women's game. Our play-by-play guy is pretty good. That analyst, what's his name, Jason Brough was not bad either.

Nice to win convincingly after I was a little nervous about this one.

You gotta love the 15 rebound advantage... I didn't see the game, but only 8 FT for us the whole game??

Whew! I was nervous after LMU made that run at the end of the first half, but the Pilots got out of first gear for the start of the second half and really pulled away. Got to love the back-to-back-to-back threes by Niedermeyer, Campbell, and Stohl.

Raivio was a beast, Robin provided a good lift in the second half, and Kramer was killing it too. Solid all-around, and a very nice win on the road. Yeah, I know LMU is really struggling this year, but we won on the road by the big amount we were supposed to - a sign of a team that is gaining more and more experience. I love it!

Now let's down the Waves and go to 4-1 in the WCC!!!!!

I was really happy with the run to start the second half... that is a sign of a maturing team.

Raivio was huge tonight... the ESPNU stat said that was his first career double-double... is that right? I would have guessed he had one last year...?

Anyway, a good win on the road. Lets break the Waves on Saturday!

Good win in a "have to have" situation. I was getting nervous when LMU cut the lead from 22 down to 13, trying to block out the SCU memory. Pilots got a little ragged for a while. But some big threes steadied things, and they played better to finish.

Zaga pounded Pepperdine, now the Pilots need to follow up with another win and cement a strong position in the league. SMU whipped USD at USD, so the leage is definitely splitting into the 2 - 4 - 2 groupings. We need to be in the upper half of that middle group.