Good Luck Portland State; Tough Break for Jamie Jones

The Vikings are hosting the Big Sky tournament tonight, squaring off against Weber State at 8 PM at the Rose Garden. Would be cool if they could make it to the NCAAs, but they need to avoid the let down they had the last time the hosted the Big Sky Tournament (three years ago).

Anyway, there's a nice article in the Portland Tribune about the Vikings today:

http://www.portlandtribune.com/sports/story.php?story_id=120518326919800800

A bit about Jamie Jones:

Jones started at University of Portland last season, before falling out of favor academically. He has long arms, shoots an unblockable jump hook and rebounds well. Just keep him off skates: He went to a party recently, fell down while roller-skating and suffered the leg fracture. He’ll be out three months.

“He’s a little bit undersized, but his arms make up for it,” Dominguez says.

Bone says: “He’s absolutely money when he gets the ball inside five feet. It’s incredible what touch he has.”

Jones says the year off will do him good, if anything, to stabilize his academics. “It can’t be a problem,” he proclaims, “or it’ll be my last time playing somewhere.”

He adds: “It was a tough road getting here (to PSU), so much stuff I had to go through. It’s best for me to sit out the whole year. And I had to develop more anyway.”

Ouch! Maybe it's just me, but who the heck has rollar skate parties any more? Was it at Oak's Park? Hope he can recover OK. I loved watching him play and I think he'll be terrific in the Big Sky.

One other quick former UP player update... Marcus Lewis and Oral Roberts will be playing tonight for a trip to the NCAAs. Jeesh... how many former Pilots are going to be in this year's tournament?