USD @ UP, Thursday 8pm

Game Day: San Diego at Portland
By Jim Beseda, The Oregonian
February 11, 2010, 8:19AM

When: 8 tonight

Where: Chiles Center (4,852), Portland

Records: San Diego (9-16, 2-7 West Coast Conference); Portland (14-8, 5-3)

On the air: TV on ESPNU (Comcast 411); radio on KCMD (970)

Probable starters: San Diego -- F Chris Lewis 7.4 ppg, 6.1 rpg), F Chris Manresa (5.4 ppg), G Devin Ginty (2.5 ppg), Brandon Johnson (14.6 ppg, 3.3 apg), G Matt Dorr (6.1 ppg); Portland -- F Ethan Niedermeyer (6.9 ppg), F Robin Smeulders (13.0 ppg, 6.5 rpg), C Kramer Knutson (5.2 ppg), G Jared Stohl (10.9 ppg), G T.J. Campbell (12.9 ppg, 5.5 apg).

Briefly: Smeulders had 19 points and nine rebounds, leading the Pilots to a 63-54 victory at San Diego on Jan. 14. The Pilots have won only three of the last 11 games against the Toreros and are in position to sweep the regular-season series for the first time since the 2003-04 season. ... Johnson came off the bench in Saturday's 59-43 loss at Santa Clara and scored six points to move within five of breaking San Diego's career scoring record of 1,725 points held by Gyno Pomare. Johnson had 19 points on 6-of-15 shooting against the Pilots four weeks ago and has scored in double figures in 16 of 23 games this season.

The Toreros have lost two in a row and seven of the last eight games, falling into a tie with Santa Clara for last place in the WCC. They're also playing without senior guard De'Jon Jackson, who suffered a torn left ACL in last week's 72-70 overtime loss to San Francisco. Jackson made his mark in Toreros' history as a sophomore when he hit an 18-foot, step-back jumper with 1.2 seconds remaining in overtime, lifting San Diego to a 70-69 victory over Connecticut in the first round of the 2008 NCAA Tournament.

Pilots' leading scorer Nik Raivio remains out indefinitely with a strained right Achilles' tendon that has already forced the senior guard to miss five games. "Nik is making progress, but just at a snail's pace," Reveno said. "He's literally been the best rehab patient I've ever seen. If you went to look for him, he's either in class or in the training room right now. He's doing everything he can, and then he's got this giant clock ticking in his head, counting down his senior year."

-- Jim Beseda

Portland basketball: Third-place Pilots need another rebound as WCC play winds down
By Jim Beseda, The Oregonian
February 10, 2010, 3:43PM

The Portland Pilots already have proven their resiliency a few times this season.

Crushed by 20 at Idaho two months ago, they returned home to beat a decent Sun Belt Conference team, Denver, 72-62. Then after getting drubbed at Washington 89-54 in the very next game, UP bounced back by pummeling Idaho by 30.

On Thursday night, the Pilots are back at the Chiles Center to face struggling San Diego (9-16, 2-7) in a nationally televised West Coast Conference game on ESPNU, hoping to put the disappointment of last week's 76-49 loss at Gonzaga behind them. The third-place Pilots (14-8, 5-3) also are looking to regain momentum with only six league games remaining, including a pivotal matchup Saturday against Saint Mary's in another nationally televised game on ESPN2.

"We took it on the chin pretty hard, but we're still a good basketball team that can compete at the top of this conference," Pilots coach Eric Reveno said. "What that means is yet to be seen. How does (tonight's) Saint Mary's-Gonzaga game play out? Can someone else get either of them?

"We've just got to take care of ourselves and keep trying to get the next one."

The Pilots still have an outside shot at landing one of the top two spots in the WCC standings and an automatic berth into the semifinals of next month's conference tournament in Las Vegas.

But they're going to need some help from other teams after last week's loss at Gonzaga all but eliminated any realistic hope the Pilots have of overtaking the Bulldogs.

"Losing like that hurts," senior forward Robin Smeulders said. "We were ready to play, and then Gonzaga just really outperformed us."

The game was tied 15-15 with 7:30 to play in the first half when the Bulldogs went on a 20-2 run and ended up rolling into halftime with a 41-21 lead.

"Those eight minutes were pretty bad," Smeulders said. "We just lost focus. Offensively, we couldn't really execute. Defensively, they just got lay-up after lay-up, and ... the game was basically over."

The Pilots shot 35.8 percent (19 of 35) from the field and it was only the fourth time in Reveno's four seasons that one of his team has been held to fewer than 50 points by a conference opponent.

"Looking back at the Gonzaga game, it just speaks to how thin our margin of error is," Reveno said. "Winning by a little or losing by a bunch is not far apart for us, because we don't have a ton of bodies. ... When you get a street fight like that, you've got to fight. We fought about 90 percent as well as we can, but it's that other 10 percent that is so important."

The Pilots also were without senior guard Nik Raivio, who missed his fifth consecutive game with a strained right Achilles' tendon.

"We missed him at Gonzaga," Reveno said. "When you start talking about the characteristics that we needed, that's what Nik brings to the table -- that extra fight, that competitive fire. We need that from Nik, plus his ability to create so T.J. (Campbell) doesn't feel the pressure to have to create all the time."

Raivio won't play Thursday or Saturday, but the Pilots are optimistic that he will return at some point.

- Jim Beseda