Box Score
BERKELEY, Calif. --- Portland entered Saturday’s game leading the West Coast Conference in field goal percentage and three-point percentage, but it was defense that led the Pilots to a thrilling 43-42 victory over Air Force in the late game of the Golden Bear Classic at Haas Pavilion on Saturday.
With the win, Portland (7-5) advances to the championship game on Sunday at 5 p.m. against host California. The Golden Bears defeated Dartmouth 98-62 in Saturday’s early game. The matchup will feature a pair of coaches very familiar with each other as Portland head coach Eric Reveno played for, and then coached alongside, Cal coach Mike Montgomery while at Stanford.
Portland trailed by 11 points in the second half before the Pilots came back and junior forward Robin Smeulders converted a three-point play with 33 seconds remaining to give the team its first lead since early in the first period.
Air Force (8-3) had three opportunities to win in the closing seconds. Senior Anwar Johnson missed the front end of a one-and-one chance with 26 seconds left and after the Pilots missed two free throws, Johnson had a runner come up short. The Falcons got the offensive rebound and out of a timeout had a jumper by Andrew Henke miss with six seconds left and Taishi Ito was able to corral the rebound and dribble out the clock.
Portland’s victory while scoring just 43 points matched a school record at the Division I level for fewest points in a win. Portland defeated Santa Clara 43-41 during the 1960-61 season. The 42 points allowed was a season-low for Portland and the lowest since 1999-00 when the Pilots defeated Seattle, 82-33.
“Those were two good teams playing hard even though they weren’t on their best games,” Portland head coach Eric Reveno said. “In games like that you can’t panic even though you’re not scoring. You just have to focus on scoring more than the other team and I thought we did a good job of maintaining our composure.”
Junior point guard T.J. Campbell was the only Pilot to reach double figures and finished with 10 points. Ethan Niedermeyer added eight points off the bench before fouling out after just 13 minutes of action.
The Pilots played without starting center Kramer Knutson after he suffered a concussion in practice earlier this week. He will be a game-time decision on Sunday.
Portland entered the contest shooting 49 percent from the field and 38 percent from three-point range, but struggled to just 29 percent from the field (14-49) and 17 percent from long range (4-24). The Pilots were allowing opponents to shoot 48 percent entering the game, but held Air Force to 28 percent (10-36).
Portland also gained a 33-29 edge in rebounds as sophomore forward Luke Sikma grabbed a season-high 13 boards.
Three Falcons reached double figures, led by Grant Parker’s 13 points off the bench.
Air Force carried an 18-17 lead into halftime and used an 11-1 run to open the second period to gain a 29-18 lead with 15:17 remaining. Despite consistently getting open looks, the Pilots struggled to score the ball but were able to chip away at the deficit courtesy of solid defense.
“I told our guys we were taking good shots, but they just weren’t falling,” Reveno added. “Offensively we didn’t convert inside. We were begging for foul calls that you can’t expect to get, you have to make a play and finish like Robin did on the last play.”
