Pilots vs. LMU

Wrote a bit of a preview for the blog... http://blog.oregonlive.com/pilots/ Not that enlightening, but whatever.

Otherwise, check this out from the UP press release:

Freshman Jared Stohl, affectionately nicknamed ‘The Sparrow’ by team manager Alex Kirk, was inserted in the starting lineup for Monday’s game at Santa Clara and responded by matching his career-high with 13 points. Stohl made all three of his three-point attempts in the first half and finished the period with 11 of Portland’s 23 first-half points. Stohl ranks third in the WCC in three-pointers made per game (1.9) and sixth in three-point percentage (.416).

http://www.portlandpilots.com/sports/mbball/release.asp?release_id=4801

The Sparrow for Stohl? I can live with that... actually, I like it! Hooray for knicknames. Now we've got The Judge, The Sparrow, The Deuce, and The Flying Dutchman. Anything else?

Maybe if Stohl beefs up next year they can change it to something respectable like......the Hawk?? If he can emulate Hershey Hawkens I'd be okay with that.

Which player would be the Albatross?

certainly not Robin.

From the Portland Pilots Basketball site- online program for Loyola Marymount game puts Smuelders in the Starting lineup again . Sikma is off the bench . Ito and Knutson are probable starters= Ito-PG,Ravio-SG,Watson-SF,Smuelders PF,Knutson-C. Hopefully with the Home Court advantage, some inside offense, and Ito getting some shots to fall,(if not then play Stohl again like last game), the Pilots can play a complete game well.

Yeah, I think starting Robin isn't a bad idea because LMU isn't too strong down low and Robin is our best post scoring option - maybe we can try to pound it in to him at the start and develop an early lead... wow, wouldn't that be nice?

Anyway... believe it or not, if we win both of these games this weekend and if LMU and Pepperdine both lose to Gonzaga (probably a safe bet), we will be in 5th place in the WCC. Crazy, huh? But true. So really... these two games are BIG. If we can pick them up, we can be in OK shape heading down the stretch.

So yeah... GOOOOO Pilots!

Glad to see the Pilots come out tough tonight, and play a solid game.

I will point out 2 guys tonight: Niedermeyer & Stohl. Both played great games tonight... Jared is really starting to mature and create his own plays... he had a ton of confidence tonight, handled the ball well and really was able to get himself open shots. Niedermeyer had a solid game, 4-8 FG's, 2-5 from 3, 5 rebounds 4 assists.

Taishi's funk continues... 17 minutes, no shots attempted, but did have a great steal.

Team defense was good, and we were really able to take advantage of Orlando Johnson's foul trouble.

Lets keep it up, and smash Pepperdine on Monday!

I thought those two played a great game. I think we noticed them because we were hoping they'd break out a bit. They did.

You can't ignore Raivio's 17 pts, Smeulder's 12 pt's and 6 boards. Knotson's 8 boards annd good defense....


Assist to turnovers was 14-10 -- best game this year
Points in the paint - 38-22

But the real key was they played with a little attitude that lead to a disruptive defense and 10 steals. It was nice to see. At the beginning of the game I was afraid they were going to direct it at each other, but they focussed it nicely.

Two things to improve- In the first half we let LMU shoot 56% from three point range, it's the only thing that kept them in. Fortunately, they only shot 1-9 in the second.


The other thing -- As the shonz said"

You
Have
to
make
your
FREE
THROWS!

Nice to see Dr.C enjoying the game, Purple suit, wig, and all. The band did a nice William Tell Overture for him down the home stretch just like he used to do..


Some of the old football and basketball Players were there. Those guys looked older than even me!

If you bought a program, they was a nice flier on Jose Slaughter in there. That guy could Play!

Jamie Jones had a night off from his new gig at PSU and was at the game. Nice to see him there.

Great to see Dr. C at the game! Best wishes to him.

Anyone have an update on his health?

No one will ever ride a trumpet like he does...

Good win for the team. Made some key shots, but especially worked to get the ball into the paint. It is important for them not to settle for a three, but work it in for a good shot.

Where is Jose Slaughter these days?

On the audio it sounded like everyone had a sound game tonight.
The announcer took the blame for jinxing stohl's first charity, but I think he isn't used to playing so much. He had a phenomenal career at the line in high school.
Nice move by coach to put Ito in to ice it at the line in the end.
I like the starting line up, now the bench (with the exception of Sikma) needs to step it up a notch.
Almost all starters ended up in double figures, Knutson doing well on the boards and seemed to start off real good.
They might become a team by the tourney after all!

up7587 wrote:
Where is Jose Slaughter these days?

Not sure...I thought he still lives in Portland. Somebody said he was at the game, but I didn't see him.

[left]

Needed the win. Great job guys. Team effort tonight. Ethan responded well with an all-around game.
Good for him. It was great to see Robin rebound from his last game. Jared hit some big shots to help
us pull away. He's not a sparrow though.

The "true sparrows" are small passerine birds. Generally, sparrows tend to be small, plump brown-grey birds with short tails and stubby yet powerful beaks. They are primarily seed-eaters, though they also consume small insects.

The Old World true sparrows are found indigenously in Europe, Africa and Asia. In Australia and the Americas, early House Sparrows, for example, are now found throughout North America, in every state of Australia except Western Australia, and over much of the heavily populated parts of South America.

Evidently in Portland the sparrow is a fearsome creature, able to strike swiftly and accurately at his enemies, making them faint of heart.

I’m looking at the wcc stats and he might be moving into the #2 slot for tres made, and maybe a spot or two up in the percentage also.

Its good to see us finally beat a team that we are supposed to beat. I think that the lineup changes are going to be good in the long term to help Ito get his confidence back, because i think with his poor play, the pressure was mounting on his shoulders. This should releive some of that pressure and he should be more relaxed when coming into the game now.

"Sparrow" has been playing since his insertion to the starting lineup.

Four players in double digits, is that a first for the season? Sikma and Knutson almost getting there. A trend I'd like to see continue.

At least Ito is relaxed at the FT.

I think calling Jared the sparrow may be putting him into a descriptive cage he doesn't deserve. Calling him Passerine totally ignores his skills at dribblerene. It can't be ignored that his shooterene is near the top of the conference.

Last night he even had a 3-1 assisterene to turnoverene ratio.

He may be many things - he's certainly not plump, And I don't think any of us have any idea what his diet is.

I wouldnt put it past The Commons to serve small insects, though...

Ah the Commons!

As for the game - it felt so good to see the team play well. They weathered the early hot-shooting storm and overcame the early second-half dry spell to put it away. Nik was great, Jared was great, Ethan stepped up, Robin showed some nice moves in the paint, Sikma looked showed some signs of his old self, and I LOVED Kramer's hustle and aggressiveness. He was battling hard all night and really gave a spark.

One thing that I figured I would just point out - if you noticed that the student section was pretty weak, it's because there was a big school dance at the Crystal Ballroom last night. Maybe it was unavoidable, but I really wish Student Activities would NOT schedule events like this the same night as a game.

Agreed, that was really poor planning on Student Activities part. They could have had it last weekend, or next weekend...

I suspect the timing of the dance had something to do with Valentine's Day. I guess us old sportsaholics wouldn't have much understanding about that type of stuff. Too many games, and definitely too much time on the internet!!

I think you need to give student activities a break. The Crystal Ballroom surely doesn't have a whole lot of weekend nights available. Furthermore, there are so many schedules that need to work out to get this dance to happen its inevitable that some events are going to conflict.

Last nights game got me excited for the future! We were able to control the tempo of the game and for the most part only the Frosh and Soph's played. The box score did show Watson playing 16 minutes, but was never in the game for more than a 2-3 minute stretch. (Carter and Thompson did not play.)

We still struggled against the press which will be interesting to see Monday against Pepperdine.