Need help writing a Pilot history piece

wrv wrote:If you want to define rival as someone or an institution with whom you "compete for superiority with; be or seem to be equal or comparable to," that sure would not include Gonzaga basketball wise--perhaps outside of sports.

I think being able to fill an arena goes a long way towards the definition of rivalry. PSU doesn't do that, even in the Stott center.

My thinking is there isn't any school that we are technically, historically, or even emotionally rivals with, but PSU comes the closest.

Gonzaga is a reasonable choice as well, historically and emotionally. Back when we were both pretty average annually (read before Gonzaga got real good), the rivalry was strong, featured a fair number of local/regional players, and was an important match up each season. Hank Anderson (1951-1972) and Al Negratti (1955-1967) certainly thought they had a rivalry going!

Geezaldinho wrote:

wrv wrote:If you want to define rival as someone or an institution with whom you "compete for superiority with; be or seem to be equal or comparable to," that sure would not include Gonzaga basketball wise--perhaps outside of sports.

I think being able to fill an arena goes a long way towards the definition of rivalry. PSU doesn't do that, even in the Stott center.

Uh... UP doesn't do that either. We might be able to sell out Stott, but can't even fill 50% of the seats in our own building.

NoPoNeighbor wrote:

Geezaldinho wrote:

wrv wrote:If you want to define rival as someone or an institution with whom you "compete for superiority with; be or seem to be equal or comparable to," that sure would not include Gonzaga basketball wise--perhaps outside of sports.

I think being able to fill an arena goes a long way towards the definition of rivalry. PSU doesn't do that, even in the Stott center.

Uh... UP doesn't do that either. We might be able to sell out Stott, but can't even fill 50% of the seats in our own building.

Funny, I've been going to gonzaga week at UP for over 25 years. Maybe it's dementia, but I can't remember a time it wasn't sold out, can you?

Admittedly, half the crowd is doggy fans, but it sounds like a definition of rivalry.

And did any student ever take a punch at a PSU coach?

Did any PSU players stomp on the Pilot wheel?

I tend to agree that when defining a rivalry for a D1 basketball program butts in seats and level of interest of the fans is a consideration. But from a competition standpoint, we in no way rival our Spokane native, at least in basketball, men's or women's.

But I also agree with the sentiment that " there isn't any school that we are technically, historically, or even emotionally rivals [with] . . ." with the sole exception that at one time we were rivals with Seattle U. If only the Redhawks could rejoin the league, the (closest thing to a) rivalry might be rekindled.

These numbers are current only to the 2011-12 season (found here: http://portlandpilots.com/documents/2012/3/20/2011-12_mens_basketball_info_guide.pdf) but I think they are pertinent to this discussion.

All time record vs. Gonzaga: 65-88 (153 games)
All time record vs. Portland State: 32-17 (49 games)

We've played more games against Gonzaga than any other program, and I would venture to guess the same is likely true for Gonzaga. (EDIT: Just double checked - yep, GU has played more games against UP than anyone. WSU #2 and Idaho #3.)

It's 100% true that Gonzaga is on an entirely different level now in terms of their program's success, but you can't discount a history of 150+ games.

Just thinking out loud but in order to have a rivalry don't both teams have to consider it as such?? Im not sure GU would feel we are their rivalry, in fact i am fairly comfortable the Zags consider St Mary's as their rival.

pilotdad1 wrote:Just thinking out loud but in order to have a rivalry don't both teams have to consider it as such?? Im not sure GU would feel we are their rivalry, in fact i am fairly comfortable the Zags consider St Mary's as their rival.

Oh, I'm under no illusion that GU fans think of Portland as anything more than a speedbump on their road to the WCC title every year.

But that's only been the case since 2000. I bet if you polled their fan base every year between 1900-1999, many of those years they would have picked UP as their rival. (And, I'm sure, WSU and Idaho and Seattle and UW, etc etc)

But on the whole, I agree with your overall point, that a rivalry has to be mutual to be a real rivalry.

I've only been a Pilot fanatic for 15 years so my history is relatively short and my perspective is based solely on that.  I would however postulate that the fact that we cannot agree on whether we have a rival, or, if we do, who it is, is prima facia evidence that we do not in fact have a rival.  Rivals are like girl friends - you only get to count the one you're dating now.  While I'd love to be good enough to be rivals with Gonzaga, for the time being I think we are dating our cross town step sister in the green (and having just picked up Ryan Edwards from Gonzaga for his last year, should be a sufficient challenge for us to hope we don't lose two in a row to them).

I'll throw in my 2 cents on the rivalry.

PSU-UP is not currently a rivalry, but has the potential to be. Even attempting to market it as the "River City Rivalry" some years back didn't drum up much interest. There's just no passion there at the moment. It sucks when we lose, but not much more than a regular game. The TIMING of some particular losses like the one immediately after being getting ranked #25 is about the only thing adding any passion to this. Enough games that feel like that on one side or the other and it could become a real rivalry.

GU-UP is the traditional rivalry. However the balance of power is currently strongly in GU's favor in the sport of basketball. It's the only conference game within reasonable driving distance and as pointed out by Stonehouse we have played more games against each other than against anyone else. The games were packed even before Gonzaga was good.

Also...consider Oregon - Oregon State is still a rivalry despite the lack of parity in their athletic programs as of late.

Very well said dholcombe! Pretty much my sentiments exactly.

Geezaldinho wrote:Funny, I've been going to gonzaga week at UP for over 25 years. Maybe it's dementia, but I can't remember a time it wasn't sold out, can you?

I can't remember a time when it wasn't "sold out," but I also can't remember a time when there weren't obviously hundreds of empty seats despite those seats apparently being sold.

I'd guess that the most UP fans to attend any game in the past 5 years (including casual fans who come to a game and are nominally rooting for the Pilots) is about 2,500. Anything above that is due to fans of the opposing team.

Last year the PSU game was 2674 including fans from the largest university in the state.


Gonzaga was 4896.

I'm willing to concede that 20 to 50 years ago, Gonzaga was our rival.  Not today.  
-  Let's be realistic, it's only basketball that counts here - nobody is looking at academics, baseball, soccer, tennis, or other sports to see how we fare against GU.  In every other sport, Gonzaga is no more significant than LMU or USD, except on a year to year basis in a particular sport if we're doing well and so are they.
- And attendance strikes me as a completely false argument.  Gonzaga fills every arena everywhere they play.  By the attendance standard, every team in the conference would have to say Gonzaga is their rival.  Gonzaga fills the Chiles Center because they are a national powerhouse every year.  We'd see the same result if we played Kentucky, Duke, or even UCLA every year.   
-  I whole-heartedly agree with Pilot dad that rivalry is reciprocal, both teams see it as so.  Gonzaga hasn't seen us as a rival since Nixon was in office.  They moved on.  So should we.

In my humble opinion.

I should have said Bush, not Nixon. Just had impeachment on my mind. Sorry

bullwinkle wrote: -  Let's be realistic, it's only basketball that counts here - nobody is looking at academics, baseball, soccer, tennis, or other sports to see how we fare against GU.  

Call me "nobody" because I regularly look at how UP is doing vs. GU in all aspects, including scores in all sports, the average SAT scores of incoming freshman, and the GPA of current student-athletes.  

In my mind, GU is THE rival, and THE competition, whether the two schools have a rivalry is apparently individually defined.

She's gone Hollywood on ya' DD. You knew her when she was a small town girl. She ain't comin' back except to break your heart once a year.

bullwinkle wrote:She's gone Hollywood on ya' DD.  You knew her when she was a small town girl.  She ain't comin' back except to break your heart once a year.  

Twice a year, if he goes to Spokane, too.

Remember when we stormed the court after we beat the Vikings?
















Me neither.

We are discussing sports and basketball primarily. Let them start a discussion in the soccer forum about their relationship with Gonzaga--I suspect they do not view Gonzaga as their rival. A more likely candidate in soccer is Santa Clara.

"Call me "nobody" because I regularly look at how UP is doing vs. GU in all aspects, including scores in all sports, the average SAT scores of incoming freshman, and the GPA of current student-athletes."

I would rather call you unresponsive in a sense. You are stretching the definition of a sports rival beyond the bounds. The context of this discussion is sports--not academics, nor lawn care, nor coed numbers, nor respective food services, nor Rhodes scholars, nor average monthly incomes five years after graduation, nor most famous graduates, nor even sports forums.

We remain competitive with everyone in all fields, but we are discussing basketball rivals.

I remember when Bill Krueger guarded Freeman Williams the whole game and did one hell of a job, holding Williams in relative check based on what he could do. The students rushed the court after that win over PSU at the colesium.

I submit the following thread http://guboards.spokesmanreview.com/showthread.php?58596-It-s-Game-Day

dholcombe wrote:I submit the following thread http://guboards.spokesmanreview.com/showthread.php?58596-It-s-Game-Day

Reborn is probably the only poster on that board who would consider Pilots a rival.

Consider this thread

http://guboards.spokesmanreview.com/showthread.php?60814-Do-you-consider-Portland-a-rival

I am enjoying seeing the debate. I think everyone is making some fair points but let's keep it civil. We are all on the same side after all.

Might be worthwhile to consider that we just don't have a true rival IN BASKETBALL.

My favorite from the Zag board:

"I guess it's all semantics at this point. I consider all of the league schools rivals, with BYU and SMC arch-rivals."