Pilots vs. Pac-12

The women play four Pac-12 teams in the preseason....a tough start for the first year staff, but a good test and good preparation for the coming WCC season.

In their very first non-exhibition game the Pilots had to face a very tough Oregon St. team that should finish 2nd to Cal in the final standings, and UP was blown off the court.

Then the Pilots stepped it up against Utah in Reno last weekend and achieved Coach Sorenson's first win as a D1 head coach.

Tomorrow (Friday) at 7PM UP takes on Coach Kelly Graves and his Oregon Ducks.  Many of us know Coach Graves from his time on the Bluff when he helped Coach Sollars build some of the best teams ever in the '90's before moving on to even more success at St. Mary's and Gonzaga before taking over at UO this season.

Coach Graves has taken over a team that is NOT quite up to UO standards, but will still be good enough to win a number of games this year.  UO will come into the Chiles Center sporting a 2-3 record with wins over Utah St (UO scored 100 points) and Portland St.

Prediction: UP will pull out the win with some good defense and timely shooting.

After the Pilots dispatch UO, they face a much tougher challenge on Sunday at 2 PM in the Chiles Center when they take on UW, winners of 5 straight, and probably 6 straight after the play Seattle U. tonight.

A tough schedule for sure....but good preparation for what is ahead beginning 12/27 against USD.

Here's the "official" release from UP Athletics: http://portlandpilots.com/news/2014/12/4/WBB_1204142031.aspx

Senior Cassandra (Cassie) Thompson:

DoubleDipper wrote:Tomorrow (Friday) at 7PM UP takes on Coach Kelly Graves and his Oregon Ducks.  Many of us know Coach Graves from his time on the Bluff when he helped Coach Sollars build some of the best teams ever in the '90's before moving on to even more success at St. Mary's and Gonzaga before taking over at UO this season.

Coach Graves has taken over a team that is NOT quite up to UO standards, but will still be good enough to win a number of games this year.  UO will come into the Chiles Center sporting a 2-3 record with wins over Utah St (UO scored 100 points) and Portland St.

Prediction: UP will pull out the win with some good defense and timely shooting.

Friday, 7pm? I'm thinking there may not be many Duck fans at this game.
2014-pac-12-football-championship-game

up7587 wrote:Friday, 7pm? I'm thinking there may not be many Duck fans at this game.
2014-pac-12-football-championship-game

Excellent!  I'm just hoping there are plenty of students!  They were pretty good at supporting the women in their two exhibition games.....the Oregon game is the team's official home opener for the season.

Well, that didn't go well for the Pilots...

Down by 18 early, they closed it to 5 in the second half, but UO started hitting from the outside and completely took over the game in the last 10 minutes to blow out the Pilots, 72-49.

UP plays UW in the Chiles Center at 2PM tomorrow (Sunday)....UW is a much better team than UO.

It was worse today against UW. Final score was 80-45.

The effort was there. Rebounding matched a taller team and they did OK with threes.

But passing into traffic created a whole slew of turnovers leading me to conclude they should just shoot threes. There is still a lot of teaching that can happen.

That wasn't the worst. WCC basketball is becoming unwatchable with the level of officiating in the league ( they were WCC refs).

It isn't that we lost. With UW 30+ points ahead, their coach was frustrated enough that he shouted " YOU GUYS ARE JUST GUESSING "  loud enough to be heard from the upper level where Afan and I were sitting.

They were so incompetent they didn't T him up

Something really needs to be done.

The turnovers were indeed a big part of the reason for the large disparity in score.

The officiating was truly atrocious.