Complete Release (pdf) I WCC Tourney Central I Printable Bracket I Live Stats I Live Audio

NO. 7 PORTLAND PILOTS (11-19, 4-12 WCC)
Date: Thursday, March 1, 2012
Tip-off:  2:00 p.m. (Appx.)
Location: Las Vegas, Nev.
Arena (Capacity): Orleans Arena (7,845)
Live TV: BYUtv
Live Audio/Stats: PortlandPilots.com
 
POR vs. SCU
Overall Series: 26-33
Here: 14-11
There: 10-20
Neutral: 2-2
Last 5/10: 2-3/6-4
Last 2: @SCU 78, POR 63 (1/5/12); SCU 71, @POR 70 (2/18/12)
 
THIS WEEK
• The Portland Pilots head to Las Vegas, Nev., this week for the 2012 West Coast Conference Championships at the Orleans Arena.
• The Pilots are the No. 7 seed and will open play in the second round against the No. 6 Santa Clara Broncos on Thursday at approximately 2 p.m.
• Santa Clara defeated the Pilots twice this season, but Portland beat the Broncos at last year’s WCC Tourney.
• The winner between Portland and Santa Clara will advance to face No. 3 seed San Diego in the Quarterfinals on Friday.
 
LAST WEEK
• Last Thursday, The Pilots overcame a handful of injuries to defeat the San Francisco Dons 77-63 at War Memorial Gym in San Francisco; Natalie Day matched a career high with 28 points during the win, and added 12 rebounds for her sixth double-double of the year.
• At the Chiles Center on Saturday, San Diego handed the Pilots a 51-46 loss in the regular season finale; Day again led the Pilots with 11 points.
 
THE WCC TOURNEY
• This is the fourth year at the Orleans Arena for the WCC Championships.
• The Pilots are 14-19 all-time at the WCC Tournament in 20 seasons; the Pilots won their only tournament championship in 1994.
• Last season, the Pilots received the fourth seed, defeated Santa Clara in the quarterfinals and lost to eventual tourney champion Gonzaga in the semi’s.
• ReZina TecleMariam was voted to the 2011 All-Tournament Team.
 
ALL-WCC
• Natalie Day landed on the All-West Coast Conference First Team for the second straight year, while guard Kari Luttinen was voted to the league’s all-freshman team.
• Day ranks second in the conference in scoring (18.0 ppg), is third in rebounding (7.9 rpg), has scored in double figures every game this season and has six double-doubles
• Luttinen is averaging 8.8 points per game since being inserted into Portland’s starting line-up on Jan. 12.
 
QUITE THE CAREER
• During Portland’s game against Pepperdine on Feb. 16, ReZina TecleMariam became the second player for Portland to reach 1,000 career points this season.
• A second-half lay-up pushed Z past the 1,000-point plateau, and she became the 21st player in program history to reach that mark.
• TecleMariam and fellow senior Natalie Day, who reached 1,000 career points earlier this year, became the first UP teammates to reach 1,000 career points in the same season since Deanna Lansing and Wendy Toonen accomplished the feat in 1997.
• TecleMariam, who has missed a handful of games this season due to injuries, now has 1,020 career points, and currently ranks fourth all-time at UP in career three-pointers made (132), while ranking sixth in assists (419), is ninth in free throw percentage (.761) and is 10th in three-point percentage (.345) and steals (204).
 
 CARPE DIEM
• Day, who began her collegiate career at Howard before transferring to UP as a sophomore, became Portland’s 20th 1,000-point scorer during the win over Cal State Northridge on Dec. 21.
• Day has now scored 1,277 points in 87 career games for the Pilots, and she ranks 12th all-time in scoring at UP.
• Day, who scored 209 points as a freshman with the Bison, actually become a career 1,000-point scorer earlier this season, and she’s now scored a total of 1,486 points between UP and Howard.
• Day also currently ranks fifth all-time Portland in career three-pointers made (123), is sixth in career scoring average (14.7 ppg), and is eighth in blocked shots (84).
• Day’s 521 points this season are the 10th most ever scored in a single season at UP; Day is the first entry on that top-10 list since 1997.
 
#1,000
• Long-time Portland head coach Jim Sollars, who’s in his 26th year at the helm of the Pilots, coached in his 1,000th career game at Santa Clara on Jan. 5.
• Sollars had stops at Wenatchee CC (seven years) and Portland State (three years) before settling in at UP.
• Sollars has more WCC wins (159) than any other coach in the 24-year history of the league, has compiled 361 career wins at UP and has been named league coach of the year an unprecedented five times.
• He has 538 wins total, he’s led the Pilots to three WCC titles and one WCC Tournament title, and he’s guide Portland to four NCAA Tournaments.
 
STEPPING UP
• Cassandra Brown appears to be hitting her stride in her second season on The Bluff.
• Brown, who is third on the team in scoring with a 9.4 points per game average, has upped her scoring to 10.8 points per contest during WCC games.
• She scored a career-high 22 points at GU and has reached double figures 15 times.
• And after hitting just nine three-pointers as a freshman, CB has a team-best 42 three’s this year.
 
STEPPING IN
• Freshman Kari Luttinen has seen her playing time increase recently and she is making the most of her time.
• She made her first three collegiate starts in January, and she responded by scoring 11, 13 and 13 against Saint Mary’s, San Francisco and San Diego, respectively.
• Luttinen is averaging 7.6 during WCC games, and is averaging 8.8 points since being inserted into Portland’s starting line-up on Jan. 12..
 
A NOVEMBER TO REMEMBER
• Natalie Day, who averaged 20.0 points and 8.0 rebounds per game during November, was named the WCC Player of the Month.
• Day, who also nabbed all three league player of the week awards handed out in November, became the first UP player to be named the conference’s player of the month since February 2005.
• The native of Germantown, Md., shot 54.9 percent from the field, scored at least 20 points four times, and she had a game with 19 rebounds, which are the most by a Pilot during a single game since 1998.
 
$$$$$$$$$$$
• Against Portland State on Nov. 25, Alexis Byrd set a new Chiles Center record by going a perfect 11-for-11 at the free throw line.
• The 11 free throws without a miss tops the previous Chiles Center record by one; former Portland stand-out Laiken Dollente went 10-for-10 at the line in 2009, while Cal Poly’s Bria Fields accomplished the feat in 2006.