LIVE VIDEO I LIVE AUDIO I LIVE STATS I GAME NOTES (PDF)
GAME INFORMATION
The Portland Pilots will host the Seattle University Redhawks on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Chiles Center. It will be the home-opener for Portland, who defeated Eastern Washington on the road on Saturday, 64-58. The Redhawks dropped an 86-64 decision at Oklahoma State to begin their regular season. Tuesday’s game will be aired live on Freedom 970 AM with Tom Kolker and Jason Brough providing the commentary. A live audio simulcast will be streamed at PortlandPilots.com. Live video will be available at www.pilotsvideo.com.
TICKET INFORMATION
Season tickets are still available through the Pilot Box Office at (503) 943-7525. Prices range from $99 to $230. Single game tickets are also on sale, while tickets for the Gonzaga game will go on-sale Tuesday, Dec. 8 at 11 a.m. Single game tickets are available through all Ticketmaster outlets, online at www.ticketmaster.com, over the phone at (800) 745-3000 or in-person at the Pilot Box Office. For complete basketball ticket information, click here.
CAPTAIN WALLY’S PRE-GAME, EVERY GAME!
Get to the games early and meet your friends at “Captain Wally’s.” New this season, fans can purchase Widmer beer and dollar dogs before every home game in the Hall of Fame Room. The pre-game also features a coaches’ chalk talk 40 minutes prior to tip-off. Open to all UP alumni, season ticket holders and friends of UP. Please have your “UP Alumni & Friends Benefit card” (complimentary through the Alumni Office at (503) 943-7328 or alumni@up.edu).
PILOTS BRIEFLY
*Portland opened the regular season with a 64-58 win at Eastern Washington on Saturday
*Luke Sikma had 13 points and 14 rebounds for his fifth career double-double
*Nik Raivio and T.J. Campbell had 16 and 15 points, respectively in the win
*Portland was picked second in the WCC Preseason Coaches Poll behind Gonzaga
*Raivio and Campbell were named to the 10-player WCC Preseason All-Conference Team
*Raivio was also named an honorable mention mid-major All-America by CollegeInsider.com
*Portland appeared in the inaugural CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT) last year, the program’s first postseason appearance since 1996
*The Pilots tied for second in school history last year in total wins (19) and WCC wins (9)
*Portland returns 12 players and all five starters
*2009 WCC Coach of the Year Eric Reveno and his staff remain together and enter their fourth year at the helm of the Pilots (assistants Joel Sobotka, Eric Jackson and Michael Wolf)
*ESPN.com’s Fran Fraschilla listed UP among the top 10 mid-major programs entering the 2009-10 season
*Portland is ranked No. 15 in the CollegeInsider.com Preseason Mid-Major Top 25
*FOXSPORTS.com’s Jeff Goodman has the Pilots in his preseason NCAA bracket as a 12-seed
*Goodman also listed Jared Stohl as the No. 6 shooter in the nation and Campbell the No. 31 shooter
*Four high school seniors singed NLI’s with Portland on Nov. 11, 2009: Riley Barker, John Bailey, Ryan Nicholas and Tanner Riley
ABOUT SEATTLE UNIVERSITY
The Redhawks (0-1) opened the regular season at Big 12 foe Oklahoma State with an 86-64 loss to the Cowboys on Saturday. Head coach Cameron Dollar is in his first year at Seattle after spending the previous seven seasons as an assistant at the University of Washington. Dollar inherits a team that finished 21-8 during the 2008-09 season, while transitioning to the Division I level. The Redhawks were 13-8 against D-I opposition. This will be the first year that Seattle plays a full D-I schedule, but they will not be eligible for post-season play until next season.
Headlining the roster for the Redhawks will be returning starters Chris Gweth and Mike Boxley. Gweth was second on the team last year in scoring (10.8 ppg), while Boxley contributed 8.7 points and 4.2 rebounds. The biggest impact newcomer will be Charles Garcia, a 6-10 transfer from Riverside Community College. Garcia, who originally committed to Washington before ending up with the Redhawks, scored a team-high 18 points with nine rebounds versus Oklahoma State.
PORTLAND-SEATTLE SERIES
Portland and Seattle have squared off 101 times dating back to the 1946-47 season. Gonzaga is the only program the Pilots have faced more than the Redhawks. Seattle owns a 73-28 all-time lead over Portland, although the Pilots won last year’s meeting at the Chiles Center by a 71-67 margin. Robin Smeulders led Portland with 22 points and seven rebounds in the victory.
LAST WEEK
Portland 64, Eastern Washington 58 (Nov. 14): Luke Sikma recorded his fifth career double-double as the Portland Pilots opened the 2009-10 season with a 64-58 victory over Eastern Washington Saturday afternoon at Reese Court. Sikma finished with 13 points and 14 rebounds as the Pilots snapped a four-game losing streak to the Eagles. Senior guard Nik Raivio scored a team-high 16 points and also grabbed nine rebounds. Senior point guard T.J. Campbell made 4-of-6 three-pointers and had 15 points. Portland, the No. 2 three-point shooting team in the nation last season, made 7-of-13 from downtown on Saturday. The Pilots also shot 50 percent from the field, but head coach Eric Reveno was most pleased with his team’s defensive effort. The Eagles shot just 32 percent from the field and 5-for-18 from the three-point range.
“I was really proud of our defense today,” Reveno said. “We rebounded well, took a lot of charges and forced Eastern to work hard for everything.”
The Pilots gained a 37-24 edge in rebounds and had a 24-16 advantage in points in the paint. Portland committed 16 turnovers which turned into a 19-11 margin in points off turnovers for the Eagles. EWU also made 23-of-30 free throws, while Portland was 15-of-23 from the line.
Portland led the entire game, jumping out to an early 12-2 lead and took the largest lead of the game at 17-5 on a Kramer Knutson layup with 11:57 remaining. Early foul trouble and turnovers in the first half caused problems for the Pilots, but solid defense gave the team a 25-19 lead. Eastern pulled within one at 28-27 on a pair of Brandon Moore free throws early in the second period, but Portland would maintain the lead throughout the period. Senior guard Taishi Ito hit a big three-pointer to give UP a 43-36 lead with at 7:56 and Campbell buried another big three to push the lead to 54-45 with 4:02 remaining.
RAIVIO NAMED MID-MAJOR ALL-AMERICA
Senior guard Nik Raivio was named to the CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major All-America Team last week. The Vancouver, Wash. native was an honorable mention selection after averaging 16.6 points and 6.5 rebounds per game last season. Raivio started this year off well, finishing with 16 points and nine rebounds at Eastern Washington.
PILOTS PICKED 2ND IN WCC PRESEASON POLL
Portland was picked to finish second in the league behind Gonzaga in the 2009-10 West Coast Conference Preseason Coaches Poll. The Zags received six first place votes and tallied 48 points to narrowly edge out the Pilots, which received the remaining two first place votes and collected 44 overall points. Portland’s senior backcourt of T.J. Campbell and Nik Raivio were each selected to the 10-player preseason all-conference team, joining Gonzaga’s Matt Bouldin and Stephen Gray as the only teammates on the list.
PILOTS SIGN FOUR TO NLI’s
Head coach Eric Reveno announced on Thursday the signing of four high school seniors to NLI’s. John Bailey (6-8, 200, F, Mesa, Ariz./Dobson HS), Riley Barker (6-9, 225, C, Surrey, B.C./White Rock Christian Academy), Ryan Nicholas (6-7, 235, F, Spokane, Wash./Gonzaga Prep) and Tanner Riley (6-3, 195, G, North Bend, Wash./Mount Si HS) will all join the Pilots for the 2010-11 season.
“With our team returning almost everybody to the roster this season, we put a premium on targeting players from the 2010 class that could maintain the momentum our program has built,” Reveno said. “Our coaching staff feels that these four players are all capable of coming in and helping immediately.”
2009-10 SEASON PREVIEW
With nearly the entire roster returning from a banner season, the University of Portland has NCAA Tournament aspirations in 2010. Now in his fourth year at the helm of the Pilots, reigning West Coast Conference Coach of the Year Eric Reveno has transformed the program. Behind the play of All-WCC First Team guards T.J. Campbell and Nik Raivio, the Pilots posted a 19-13 record last year and advanced to postseason play for the first time since 1996. It was the third best season in Portland’s 51-year history at the NCAA Division I level despite not having a senior on the roster.
With all of the talent returning, expectations have risen for Reveno and the Pilots as Portland was picked to finish second behind Gonzaga in the WCC Preseason Coaches Poll. It is the highest preseason listing ever for the Pilots. Campbell and Raivio were both named to the Preseason All-Conference Team as Portland and Gonzaga were the only two schools with more than one representative.
The Pilots carried the momentum from last year’s run to the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament into a valuable offseason. All 12 returning players and staff went on a four-game foreign tour in Australia in May of 2009. With two weeks of full team practice allowed before the foreign tour, Portland had the opportunity for an experienced team to get quality bonding time and extra on-court instruction.
Reveno credits the stability of his coaching staff – assistants Joel Sobotka, Eric Jackson and Michael Wolf all came to Portland with Reveno prior to the 2006-07 season – as one of the many factors in the program’s growth. That stability has transformed a team that was the eighth youngest in the nation two years ago into one of the favorites in the WCC this season.
Signature wins over the University of Washington, Saint Mary’s College and University of Nevada gave the Pilots a taste of high-level success last year. With a challenging schedule that features Oregon, Washington, Nevada and UCLA at the 76 Classic this season, Portland will have more opportunities to establish itself as a national player.
ON THE PERIMETER
Portland developed a reputation last season as a dangerous perimeter team and finished second nationally in three-point percentage (.418). One of the main reasons for the successful campaign was the play of Campbell, a junior college All-American from Glendale CC. Campbell shot 53.1 percent from three-point range and was four makes short of leading the nation in that category. He converted a blistering 60 percent of his three-point attempts during WCC games. Campbell led the league in assists per game (league games only) during his first WCC season and finished the year with averages of 11.4 and 4.7 assists.
Raivio is 109 points shy of becoming the 31st player in school history with 1,000 career points and just the 12th to do it in three or less years with the program. He led the team last season in scoring (16.0) and rebounding (6.5) and was the only guard in the WCC to finish in the top 10 of both categories.
Junior sharpshooter Jared Stohl was 89-for-195 from downtown (.456) and third nationally in three-point percentage. He set a school record with nine three-pointers in a home win versus San Francisco. Stohl, an honorable mention All-WCC pick last year, is on pace to break the school record for career three-pointers this year. He was rated the No. 6 shooter in the nation this year by FoxSports.com’s Jeff Goodman.
Senior Ethan Niedermeyer and junior B.J. Porter split starting duties on the wing last year. Niedermeyer battled injuries after starting the season with a 14-point effort in the upset of Washington. Portland struggled to a 2-4 record in games Niedermeyer missed. Porter came on to earn the starting nod late in the season and provided multiple highlight reel dunks on the fast break. His shot has improved dramatically since first arriving on campus as a freshman.
Senior co-captain Taishi Ito provides a steady hand at the point guard position and is also the best perimeter defender for the Pilots. Sophomore Eric Waterford earned point guard minutes down the stretch last year and had his best performance in the WCC semifinals against Saint Mary’s.
Sophomore Nemanja Mitrovic is another player that can shoot it from deep and will look to crack the playing rotation in his second full year on The Bluff. Freshman walk-on Cody Mivshek provides toughness on the perimeter.
IN THE PAINT
Portland boasts an experienced frontline led by senior forward Robin Smeulders. At 6-feet, 10-inches, Smeulders used his athletic frame and good shooting touch to average 10.6 points and 5.9 rebounds per game and earn All-WCC honorable mention status.
Two-year starting junior center Kramer Knutson and versatile 6-foot, 8-inch junior forward Luke Sikma also have played big-time minutes since their freshman seasons. Knutson does a lot of the dirty work underneath and shot a team-high 54.4 percent from the field last season. Sikma missed much of last year’s preseason training with a knee injury, but has shown the ability to be a dominant force at both ends of the floor. He nearly averaged a double-double in his first 10 games as a freshman.
Junior center Jasonn Hannibal has the best size on the team (6-10, 270) and looks to continue his improvement and be a regular member of the rotation this season. Freshman walk-on Ryan Schaefer is coming off of surgery repairing a torn ACL over the summer.
THE SCHEDULE
Highlighting the 2009-10 schedule will be the 76 Classic in Anaheim over Thanksgiving weekend. The eight-team field includes six teams that competed in last year’s NCAA Tournament. Portland will open the tourney against UCLA live on ESPN2 Thanksgiving Day at 7:30 p.m. and then play either Butler or Minnesota the following day. Other 76 Classic participants include West Virginia, Clemson, Texas A&M and Long Beach State.
Portland will open the regular season at Eastern Washington on Nov. 14. The Pilots have lost four straight to the Eagles and are looking to avenge last year’s 63-58 loss at the Chiles Center, one of only two all year at home for Portland. Other key non-conference games include home games against Oregon (Nov. 21) and Portland State (Dec. 2) road games at Washington (Dec. 19) and Nevada (Dec. 28). The Pilots will also play a home-and-home with upstart Idaho.
WCC play begins with a matchup of the two preseason favorites as Gonzaga visits the Chiles Center on Saturday Jan. 9. The WCC Championships will again be hosted by the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas on Mar. 5-8.
