Pilots WERE up 21-10!!! Now they're down 55-41. :(

I know it's early, but hey... up by 11... not bad at all!

Kramer Knutson is dominating the paint with rebounds, and Ito and Thompson are hitting shots.

Goooooo Pilots!

Well rats... Fresno State went on a big run and go into the half leading 28-27. Miller hit a three as time expired and as he was falling out of bounds. Darn!

Live by the three, die by the three. They were missing them early, but came on strong at the end.

I'm actually more impressed by how well we played with Raivio out of the game for all but the first three minutes.

Darn it... Fresno just isn't missing from downtown. They've made 7 of their last 8. Pilots down by 7 now... 44-37.

Come on Pilots!

Ugh. This is pretty frustrating. Lots of turnovers and just crazy hot shooting by Fresno. Seems like all they are doing is bombing threes.

Oh well. At least they had a great start.

A decent showing by the Pilots on the road at Fresno State... to be in a game where the home team shoots the lights out (13-26, 50%) from 3 is good for such a young team (even with us shooting 22% from 3). FSU is a veteran team, too.

Had we not been so cold from outside, we would have been right there.

Lets take it to SDSU tomorrow!

I'm . . . encouraged by this game. Outside shooting has been our Achilles heel ever since Pooh graduated - hopefully Raivio and Thompson can heat up soon.

I'm encouraged by what I heard. Remember, this is the first D1 game for most of those guys. they hung tough and even came back a little at the end. sounds like the freshmen bigs can play, and Smeulders got 17.

Still a ways to go, though...

Stonehouse,
At the start of the game I don't think the Bulldog fans expected much of a challenge.However, when the Pilots jumped out to 23-10 lead it shocked the crowd and their players. I think Fresno with its upperclassman players thought they; were going to have a cakewalk with the Pilots being so young and inexerienced. Wow, it was nice to see a well-coached,disiplined team like the pilots played last night.
I was able to watch the second half of the SDSU vrs Liberty game and it looks like its going to be a real great game to watch.Their somewhat of a streetball team like Freno was just not as talented.
Last night Luke Sikma,and Ito played outstanding. Sikma had some great moves to the basket and was not intimaded at all by the big beefy Fresno big men. Ito kept the Buldogs on their heels with constant fastbreak presure in the game.Kramer Knutson was helping Sikma dominate the boards for 20 minutes. Another great thing to watch was Niedamier(Sp) played with such intensit;y.he sure doesn't look like a deer looking into the headligts anymore. He played so well with the intangibles that you knew this because he was the favorite target of the Freso Hecklers

Mesapilot

Smuelders had some great moves to the basket and his shot range is nice to see. One can see how is European expierence helps him against D-!1 competiion.
Heck I don't want to brag about how some of these guys played but Jason Hanibal provided some valueble backup minutes when Kramer Knutson was on the bench. Boy is he large and you can see how raw and talented he is. Rev is going to turn that Young MAN into some kind of force in the middle.I think you guys will enjoy the style of play while you continue to watch their home games in Portland.

MesaPilot... thanks for all the great info! I hope all is well in Fresno!

I talked with someone who was at the game and it sounded like the Pilots did a pretty nice job in the paint all-around, pretty impressive considering not a single guy on the team had any experience at the D1 level. Definitely a positive sign, especially with it being so early in the year!

I also heard that Taishi did a great defensive job on Bell, Fresno's talented point guard. Sounds like Bell was frustrated all night and couldn't really get anything going against Ito. So that's good to hear too.

If we could just cut down the turnovers and shoot the ball a little bit better, I think this team could definitely be competitive in a lot of games, especially since they play good fundamental defense and have a lot of good basketball IQ players out there.

Anyway, I'm pumped about tonight... though I won't be able to listen to much of it since I'll be at Merlo. Oh well!

Goooooo PILOTS!!!