2017 off season

Based on the scrimmage, best players on the team are F. Porter and McSwiggan. After those two, I was most impressed by Shaver and M. Porter.

Claims of Hartwich's improvement are unfounded, based only on last night's limited sample. He missed numerous easy shots, and missed badly on several attempted short hook shots, despite being defended by players several inches shorter and significantly less experienced.

I was unimpressed by Diabate's offensive game. Very poor shooting performance, missing numerous layups and short baseline shots.

Tyson is as one-dimensional as ever, and last night he shot terribly.

Hogland and Diabate did a good job on the rebounds. Hartwich blocked a lot of shots.

NoPoNeighbor wrote:I was unimpressed by Diabate's offensive game. Very poor shooting performance, missing numerous layups and short baseline shots.

Oh there's plenty of room for improvement. But I loved his instincts and how he always seemed to be in the mix for loose balls and rebounds and all that. I think he's going to be good.

A more detailed write-up via the Portland Tribune.

http://www.pamplinmedia.com/pt/12-sports/368973-251597-pilots-mostly-new-as-journey-begins-in-earnest

NoPoNeighbor wrote: Claims of Hartwich's improvement are unfounded, based only on last night's limited sample. He missed numerous easy shots, and missed badly on several attempted short hook shots, despite being defended by players several inches shorter and significantly less experienced.

Well, it was only a scrimmage, but Phil's 17 points on 8-for-11 shooting, 20 rebounds, and 4 blocked shots does seem an improvement from what I remember from last season.

Rashad Jackson's 20 points, 10 rebounds and five assists seems noteworthy, but yeah, it would seem Franklin Porter's 27 points is a good omen for the sophomore guard who is expected to be starter this coming season.

The guys headed to the airport this morning, it will be interesting to see how they do against older more established teams in England.

In his remarks, Porter tempered expectations for next season:

Porter isn't expecting a quick turnaround from last season, when the Pilots won their first two WCC games, then dropped their final 16 — 12 of them after losing their best player, point guard Alec Wintering, for the season to injury.

"The challenge is getting the guys to all buy into a team-first philosophy," Porter said. "We have to make huge strides and try to climb. It's going to take a couple of years. We have a lot of freshmen. There are going to be growing pains. The game is going to be different for them.

"But we want to make some strides. We don't want to win two games in conference, I'll say that much. Is it going to be .500? I don't know what it's going to be, but the guys will grow. Offensively, I think we'll be fine. Defensively, we have to get better. Defense is going to make the difference for us."

Outside the apparently good performances already mentioned, the fact that McSwiggan will play power forward is interesting. Starting five Walker, Shaver, Porter, Hartwich and McSwiiggan?

The tradition continues: