Portland vs. UCLA: Gameday!

From Andy Katz, a comment giving good respect to the WCC:

Still, the win over UCLA helps Portland's credibility as it tries to get out from under Gonzaga's long shadow in the WCC.

"What this shows is that we can play, too," Stohl said.

That's true. But it also puts the Bruins in a light that makes you wonder not where Portland would finish in the Pac-10, but rather, where this UCLA team would finish in the WCC.

Let's remember, this is a league that features Maui Invitational champ Gonzaga, a Saint Mary's team that has barely missed a beat without Patty Mills, a San Diego team that already has beaten Stanford and Oklahoma and a Portland team that has easily dispatched two Pac-10 opponents.

Would those same Bruins we saw Thursday night finish any higher than fifth in the WCC?

That's something few, if any, would have pondered during the preseason.

BTW, I'm not sure I characterize the UO win as "easy".

LINK

up7587 wrote:From Andy Katz, a comment giving good respect to the WCC:

Still, the win over UCLA helps Portland's credibility as it tries to get out from under Gonzaga's long shadow in the WCC.

"What this shows is that we can play, too," Stohl said.

That's true. But it also puts the Bruins in a light that makes you wonder not where Portland would finish in the Pac-10, but rather, where this UCLA team would finish in the WCC.

Let's remember, this is a league that features Maui Invitational champ Gonzaga, a Saint Mary's team that has barely missed a beat without Patty Mills, a San Diego team that already has beaten Stanford and Oklahoma and a Portland team that has easily dispatched two Pac-10 opponents.

Would those same Bruins we saw Thursday night finish any higher than fifth in the WCC?

That's something few, if any, would have pondered during the preseason.

BTW, I'm not sure I characterize the UO win as "easy".

LINK

Huh, well, I can see why you might not want this to go to our heads, but, TJ did slam on the Ducks in the last 10 seconds after the game was already over. In the post game interview, Rev said that we had more time to scout for and prepare for UCLA than we did for other recent games. I think if we had more time against the Ducks, we might have been able to win by more. Though I think that UCLA would kill for a point guard of Tujuan Porter's calibur right now. I respect Tujuan Porter, but, we completely dominated the Ducks in the second half. Only the first half of the game was close. Basically the whole second half was a Pilot run, and I think that may have been a turning point for us as a program. Look at how much we've outscored our opponents since the second half of the Oregon game...

Well, the UO game was tied with 4:16 to go. From a game report:

The Pilots figured out how to deal with Oregon’s pressure defense during the break and opened the second half with a 15-1 run, capped by Robin Smeuldlers’ tip-in of a Luke Sikma miss that gave them a 52-45 lead.

From there, the lead changed hands four times, the Pilots going on top to stay on Jared Stohl’s three-pointer from the left wing that broke a 72-72 tie with 4:16 remaining.

Four 2nd half lead changes and a late tie; that's too close for me! I much prefer the stomping approach we used last night, although I imagine many casual viewers, and Bruins fans, turned that game off well before the final buzzer.

Go Pilots, beat Minnesota!

up7587 wrote:Well, the UO game was tied with 4:16 to go. From a game report:

The Pilots figured out how to deal with Oregon’s pressure defense during the break and opened the second half with a 15-1 run, capped by Robin Smeuldlers’ tip-in of a Luke Sikma miss that gave them a 52-45 lead.

From there, the lead changed hands four times, the Pilots going on top to stay on Jared Stohl’s three-pointer from the left wing that broke a 72-72 tie with 4:16 remaining.

Four 2nd half lead changes and a late tie; that's too close for me! I much prefer the stomping approach we used last night, although I imagine many casual viewers, and Bruins fans, turned that game off well before the final buzzer.

Go Pilots, beat Minnesota!

I prefer both approaches. The drubbing of UCLA was great for grabbing everyone's attention (although too much attention is on how weak UCLA is rather than our strength...we can change that tonight) but games like the Oregon game are amazing for the fans in attendance. No one left early and the entire game was fun. Hopefully that will get some fans to return to more of our games.

Good plan: blow-out wins on the road, and tight hard fought victories at home.

Wow! I had to record the game last night and avoid the internet and human contact today until after work to watch the game. I was confident about this game, but no way did I ever expect to win by 27. I was very impressed with the commentating staff, they definitely did their research on the Pilots. I haven't looked at the boxscore yet, but I assume we ended the game shooting well over 50% from the field and three. What a shooting performance by Jared. He has a very quick release.

The crazy thing to me...I think we could have played better and won by more. We definitely had some silly, unforced turnovers. UCLA got a few too many offensive rebounds in my opinion (though they often did not capitalize). Nik played a solid game, as did Sikma...really the whole team did. Other than the bad TOs, TJ played well.

My favorite part was after the game, Andy Katz's interview with Rev, "I really like our team. I really like our team." And he had a Sh**-eating grin on his face.

Slip It In!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Agreed... if TJ doesnt have a couple of those silly turnovers... we go up by 30+ sooner and maybe win by a larger margin. (yeah, yeah, i suppose the opposite is also true).

I was impressed with the way we came out to start the 2nd half... no let up, and we kept the foot on the throat and made it clear we werent going to let UCLA back in the game at all in the first couple minutes. No chance. In fact we scored the first 5 point of the second half, if I recall correctly (including a dagger 3 by Stohl).

Butler over UCLA 42-25 at the half