Gonzaga at Portland, Saturday 7:00 PM

Well, here we sit at 9-5 pre conference. Losses vs. WVU (neutral), PSU (H), Idaho (A), UW (A), and Nevada (A). Quality wins vs. Oregon (H), UCLA (N), and Minn (N). Before the season began, I was hoping for two wins in Anaheim and quality wins vs. Oregon and on the road against Nevada. Obviously, I was thinking we'd have two wins against Idaho and a win against PSU. Those are blemishes on our schedule.

If we win 10 or 11 confernce games, we will have a final record (before the tourney) of 19-9 or 20-8. 12 conference wins (my high mark) puts us at 21-7, which would be a very good place to be going into the tournament.

After catching the Idaho and Army games over Christmas, we'll need to pick up a few things to reach those win totals, especially now that BJ is not returning this season. I believe that our keys to winning games are defense and rebounding. Defensively, if we keep teams in the 60s (preferably the low 60s), we realistically have a chance of winning every game. I think we have the ability to do this, but it takes some very hard work. I notinced that, especially in the Army game, Rev was VERY focused on defense. He was up and yelling when we were on defense, making sure the guys were working hard. We aren't necessarily more athletic than teams we will be playing, soyou counter that with hard-nosed defensive efforts. Good defense is only effective if you can rebound your opponents missed shots. It seems to me that Nik has somewhat disappeared on the fensive glass - maybe only getting 3 or4 a game. With Kramer, Robin, Ethan, Luke etc blocking out, it creates the opportunity for Nik to come in and grab the board. If he can picvk up those rebounding numbers, that would help greatly. Force the opponent into bad shots, and limit the opportunities they get for second chance opportunities.

Other things that are important. Free throw shooting!!!! Gotta get those numbers better. It will keep games close when every shot may not be falling, and let us pull away from those games that are 6-10 point leads going down the stretch. Not having let downs, whether they be at the start of a half, or just on the road in general. We're a veteran team, and need to be present mentally at all times. We shouldn't let teams back into games, and we shouldn't let equal or lesser opponents build an insurmountable lead.

All in all, I think we're starting to get back on our stride. We need to realize that, while we're a great shooting team, our offense won't carry us to victory. We have got to be a tough team and allow our entire game defensive effort to lead to a solid offensive output that will put us on top over the stretch of a 40 minute game.

Thoughts?

Go Pilots!!

And since I didn't really put anything Zag specific in there....We'll have to play with our "A" game to beat the zags. Honestly, they've really impressed me this year. I thought they would be a two-man show with Gray and Bouldin, but Harris and Sacre have really looked good, really good. Harris especially, with his athleticism, scares me.

I think rebounding will be huge for us. Remember how WVU got soooo many second chance points? I think Gonzaga has the potential to do the same thing. Offensively, we can't let their extended defense take us out of our offense. It seems like when people extend teir defense on us, we tend to let it take us out to the half court line. This is not a good place to run your offense from. penetration and dishing is key when facing that type of defense.

It also wouldn't hurt for Ito to knock down a few threes that he gets the opportunity to take. He's been shooting pretty well as of late. I like the chances of him getting a few open looks - knock em down Taishi!

Lukes skull against Bouldins head (He's already had two concussion's, and Luke put Kramer out for 4 games last year.

Robin and Harris get in a tussling match and the Germans both get ejected.(What do you think...Robins teaching Luke and Kramer,Ethan, and Jasonn a few cuss words to get Harris revved up and thrown out of the game???)

Ito brings his friend Kevin Durrant back for his one game only senior year as a transfer from Texas and throws him the winning pass in a 72-69 victory .


Enough jocularity, it will take a great performance to be in the game, and an outstanding one to win the game. Dtrchn your DEFENSE and REBOUNDING points are right on. Quite an observation

I'm not really surprised by anything that Gonzaga is doing this year. Gray makes them tick. Their pointguard had an end-to-end buzzer beater in the tourney to beat a team that had knocked of Louisville in the regular season (in last year's tourney). Boldin is a solid player, and Sacre was so promising as a freshman that I felt he could be dominant in the WCC. Plus, in Few's system he just seems to reload. Unfortunately, the Jesuit ballers are still good. But, we have another high RPI team on our schedule.

I'm more surprised by our struggles with road games, and I hope we can turn that corner. Fortunately, this game against GU is at home!!! We tend to do everything slightly better at home: defense, rebounding, turnover differential, and hitting the free throws. So, I'm going to stay positive here. Go Pilots. Give us your A game again! And for bleep's sake hit the darn free throws! (Okay that's as positive as I'm going to get today.)

onetouchfutbol wrote:Their pointguard had an end-to-end buzzer beater in the tourney to beat a team that had knocked of Louisville in the regular season (in last year's tourney).

I was in the arena for that. It made me sick. That team was Western Kentucky, who upset Illinois in the first round. Watching Washington lose in front of a bunch of Husky fans was terrific, though.

http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/tix/1540041629.html

http://portland.craigslist.org/clk/tix/1539434699.html

http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/tix/1538629513.html

Looking at these I kinda wish I had taken advantage of buying the extra seats and selling my half court, first row. Oh well, I just hope we have a lot of Pilots fans there.

Serioulsy, all I hear about these days is that we are in a recession and the stuff (especially tickets) are really cheap. Then I see this and when the Pack visited the Vikings there were tickets on craigslist for $1200.

I doubt anyone will spend the $250 though. Wouldn't be surprised if they sold for $75.

Everyone saying they want tickets are saying they will pay face or a little more. Who knows??

I guess you cant blame a seller for listing a high price up front... but I find it very hard to believe anyone will pay that much for them... Check prices again on Saturday morning...

Well on Stub Hub there aren't even any available, and the return match at Spokane has tickets running in the $300-$400 range...

For all that extra money maybe someone can convince ESPN to launch their 3D network 6 months early at CC...

Well this thread has officially been INFECTED, as portions of a post has made the Bulldog message board so a few of their "bandwagon" fans not regular posters (I'll give them credit that their regulars can stick to original material) could pile on comments made on this board about our team with deep sarcasm.

I can't believe those guys are whinning about tickets still, they had month's and month's and now the bandwagon fans are complaining they cant get any tickets, duh, it was sold out awhile back. I don't hear any of their fans that attend every year doing this kinda .


Oh well it will be settled on the court on Sat. EVE.

mattywizz wrote:Serioulsy, all I hear about these days is that we are in a recession and the stuff (especially tickets) are really cheap. Then I see this and when the Pack visited the Vikings there were tickets on craigslist for $1200.

I doubt anyone will spend the $250 though. Wouldn't be surprised if they sold for $75.

Sports tickets are one thing that haven't been affected at all by the economy. They're like the market for HD TVs or I-phones. Nobody seems to think about whether they can afford it, and everyone rationalizes it as a priority.

When we beat the Zags at home, whenever that day comes, it will be especially sweet because it will be in front of tons of Zag fans.

I hope we are in for a different situation this year; tickets were much harder to come by, even for UP people "in the know"... and there were only a few upper rows on the end zones left when they went on public sale. I think the crowd will be much more UP-trending this year than recent history...

Maybe all of Rev's appearances on The Game earlier this year have drawn interest in the Pilots. Hooking up with them has been a tremendous idea as they brought in Canzano to do his show before the PSU game and have been running promos all week talking about how they will be live at the Chiles Center Saturday.