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Portland Pilots (11-15, 5-8) vs Gonzaga Bulldogs (19-5, 11-2)
Date: Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016
Tip-off: 8:00 p.m.
Location: Portland, Ore.
Arena: Chiles Center (4,852)
TV: ESPNU
Radio: 910 ESPN-Portland (KMTT)
Live Stats: PortlandPilots.com

POR vs. GON Series
Overall: 66-96
At POR: 35-38
At GON: 22-46
Neutral: 9-12
Last 1: #23 GON 85, POR 74 (Jan. 9 at Gonzaga)

THIS WEEK
• Portland looks to carry the momentum from a road sweep of Pepperdine and LMU last week into Thursday's nationally televised game against rival Gonzaga.
• The game is scheduled for an 8 p.m. tip-off and is sold out. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m.
• Gonzaga won the first meeting between the schools by an 85-74 margin on Jan. 9 in Spokane, Wash.

GAME COVERAGE
• The game will be televised live on ESPNU with Roxy Bernstein and Corey Williams providing the commentary.
• All Pilot games are on the radio on the home of the Pilots, 910 ESPN-Portland (KMTT) with a 30-minute pregame show and Jason Swygard calling the action.
• Online audio and live stats will be available at PortlandPilots.com.

ABOUT THE PILOTS
• The Pilots (11-15, 5-8 WCC) are coming off of a road sweep of Pepperdine and LMU last week that snapped a four-game losing streak and has Portland alone in seventh place in the WCC standings.
• Junior PG Alec Wintering earned his second WCC Player of the Week honor after averaging 24.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 6.5 assists in the two wins.
• Portland led a majority of the game Thursday at Pepperdine, but had to come back in the closing minutes for a thrilling 73-70 victory. It marked the first home loss of the season for Pepperdine.
• Wintering scored a team-high 19 points and had seven rebounds and six assists. Junior F Jarrel Marshall added 14 points and a season-high 12 rebounds, while sophomore G D'Marques Tyson added 16 points.
• The Pilots then routed LMU 92-78 on Saturday behind 29 points from Wintering and 23 from Tyson.
• Wintering previously recorded his 1,000th career point earlier this year at Saint Mary's to become the 38th player in school history to accomplish the feat. Senior G Bryce Pressley is 12 points shy of his 1,000th career point as well.
• A three-year starter and Preseason All-WCC selection, Wintering is second in the WCC in steals (1.7), fourth in scoring (19.0) and fifth in assists (5.5). His 22.5 points per game in WCC play ranks second behind Gonzaga's Kyle Wiltjer.
• Portland is 20th nationally in three-pointers made per game (9.6). The Pilots lead the WCC in three-pointers made and rank second in steals (7.1), turnover margin (+1.7) and blocked shots (4.1).
• Portland is attempting 25.2 three-pointers per game, including 40 against Colorado State. That broke the previous Pilot single-game record of 34 attempts.
• Portland has played up-tempo basketball and attempted 80 field goals against UC Davis, the most since the team hoisted 84 on Nov. 25, 2001 against Duke.
• Coach Eric Reveno has a deep bench with 11 players averaging nine or more minutes.
• Pressley, also a three-year starter, is averaging a career-best 14.1 points per game, including 30 in the season opener versus Oregon Tech.
• Reveno returns seven lettermen from a 2014-15 squad that finished 17-16 overall and earned an invitation to the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament. 

ABOUT GONZAGA
• The Bulldogs (19-5, 11-2 WCC) have won five straight and now sit alone in first place in the WCC standings. Gonzaga is receiving votes in both national polls.
• The frontcourt tandem of Kyle Wiltjer (21.8 points, 6.5 rebounds) and Domantas Sabonis (17.4 points, 11.5 rebounds) has been a force.
• Senior C Przemek Karnowski started five games before season-ending back surgery.
• Head coach Mark Few is in his 17th season at the helm of the Bulldogs and has led Gonzaga to the NCAA playoffs each year along with 15 WCC Championships.
• Gonzaga swept the series last season and won by an 84-73 margin on Jan. 9 in Spokane. Portland's last win against the Bulldogs at the Chiles Center was an 82-73 win on Jan. 9, 2014.
 
WINTERING RACKS UP THE ACCOLADES
• Alec Wintering has had a remarkable season and continues to establish himself as one of Portland's all-time greats.
• He picked up his second WCC Player of the Week award on Monday and also earned CollegeSportsMadness.com National Player of the Week and the CollegeCourtReport.com National Mid-Major Player of the Week. CollegeInsider.com's Angela Lento also named Wintering to her weekly top five performance list among all mid-majors.
• The Charlotte, N.C. native scored a career-high 34 points against Pepperdine on Dec. 23 to earn WCC Player of the Week honors. That was followed by erupting for 31 points, four rebounds, four assists and zero turnovers against San Francisco on Dec. 31.
• It marked the first time a Pilot ever recorded back-to-back 30-point games.
• Wintering was a perfect 15-of-15 from the free throw line against USF, falling one short of the school record for free throws without a miss in a single game (Rick Raivio, 16-16, Jan. 5, 1980 vs. San Francisco).
• He scored 13 points on Jan. 23 at Saint Mary's to become the 38th player in school history to score 1,000 or more points.
• Wintering's 22.5 points per game in WCC play is second overall.
• He is No. 2 all-time for UP in assists per game (5.3), No. 3 in three-point percentage (.429), No. 5 in total assists (452) and No. 7 in steals (137).

TYSON PROVIDES INSTANT OFFENSE
• Sophomore G D'Marques Tyson has started the last four games and is averaging 18.4 points per game over the last seven contests.
• Tyson is averaging 5.1 threes made per game during his hot run, hitting 36-of-67 (.537) from beyond the arc.
• He erupted for a career-high 27 points in his first career start against San Francisco, including eight three-pointers.
• Tyson leads the Pilots and ranks second in the WCC with 2.9 threes made per game. That averaged has jumped to a league leading 3.6 per game in WCC play.
• He has now drained four or more three-pointers 10 times this season.
• His 22.8 points per 40 minutes are second on the Pilot roster to Wintering (24.3).
• Perhaps most impressive has been Tyson's improvement in other areas. He was the primary defender against BYU's Kyle Collinsworth as the Pilots held him to 10 points on 4-of-17 shooting. He then grabbed a career-high eight rebounds at LMU.

MARSHALL BREAKS OUT
• Junior F Jarrel Marshall had a breakout weekend in Southern California.
• The Palm Beach State JC transfer recorded his first double-double of the season and finished with 14 points and a career-high 12 rebounds at Pepperdine. He also blocked the potential game-tying three-pointer at the buzzer.
• Marshall then finished with 13 points, eight rebounds, five assists and four blocked shots on Saturday at LMU.

HOME/ROAD SPLITS
• Portland is 8-6 at home and 3-7 in true road games this season. The Pilots are also 0-2 in neutral site games.
• In home games the Pilots average 81.1 points, allow 75.3 points, shoot 45 percent overall and opponents shoot 42 percent.
• In road games the script has flipped with the Pilots averaging 75.3 and allowing 81.9. Portland shoots just 42 percent, while opponents shoot 46 percent.

PRESSLEY IMPRESSES
• Senior G Bryce Pressley opened the year with a career-high 30 points and eight three-pointers against Oregon Tech. He also scorched LMU with seven three-pointers and 25 points and followed with 15 points and 4-of-5 from beyond the arc against Pepperdine.
• The son of former Villanova NCAA Champion and NBA guard Harold Pressley, Bryce is closing in on becoming the 39th 1,000-point scorer in program history. He currently has 988 career points, but his value has been in his versatility.
• Pressley ranks seventh in UP history in three-pointers made (145), seventh in three-point percentage (.399), 12th in assists (297), tied for 13th in career steals (111) and 20th in blocked shots (44).

FREE THROW STRUGGLES SUBSIDE
• Portland entered its Dec. 31 game at San Francisco shooting just 64.3 percent from the free throw line as a team.
• The Pilots made their first 17 attempts of the game and finished 25-of-28 overall. UP now is second in the league in free throw percentage in WCC games (.778).
• Alec Wintering, who was shooting a career-low 67 percent entering the USF game, but now sits at 77.8 percent.

JOHNSON SOLIDIFIES ROLE
• Freshman PG Jazz Johnson scored a season high 22 points against San Francisco on Dec. 31, eclipsing his previous high of 14 scored against Oregon Tech in the season opener.
• He has carried that momentum into more minutes as WCC play has progressed averaging 7.2 points and posting a 1.6 assist-to-turnover ratio in league play.
• Johnson was a high-scoring prep player out of Lake Oswego High School in Lake Oswego, Ore. He broke the prestigious Les Schwab Invitational tournament scoring record by averaging 35.0 points per game over four games.

THREE-POINT THREATS
• Portland drilled 15 three-pointers on Saturday at LMU, tying the season-high established against Alcorn State and one shy of the program record set against Idaho on Dec. 20, 2009.
• The Pilots rank 20th nationally in threes per game (9.6) and 39th in three-point percentage (.380).
• Portland was the best three-point shooting team in the nation over a three-year period from 2009-11. That stretch included 2010 NCAA Three-Point Champion Jared Stohl and Pilot career three-point percentage leader T.J. Campbell.

LATE GAME STRUGGLES
• The Pilots have struggled to close out games all season. Portland tied the game at Pacific four times and had nine possessions with a chance to tie or take the lead come up empty.
• Portland led by 15 late at San Francisco, but went scoreless over the final 3:40 as the Dons were able to pull away. The Pilots then led 61-60 with 8:06 left at Santa Clara, but went just 2-for-14 from the field the rest of the game in the loss.
• The Pilots had two shots to win before the buzzer in an 80-79 loss to Southern Illinois at the Corpus Christi Coastal Classic, but both missed.
• Idaho State got a tip-in in the closing seconds for a 66-65 win over the Pilots, while Weber State hit contested three-pointer with 0.8 seconds left in regulation to force overtime, which they would go on to win by a 92-82 margin.
• Portland also was tied with Boise State with 5:15 remaining, but suffered a nearly four-minute scoring drought in the 81-71 loss.

FAMILIAR FACES ON THE BENCH
• Head Coach Eric Reveno picked up a pair of his former players to join the coaching staff this offseason. Mitch Johnson, a former Stanford point guard, comes on as an assistant coach, while former Pilot center Kramer Knutson also joined the staff as director of basketball operations.

PILOTS SIGN LOCAL CENTER TO NLI
• Portland announced that 6-10 center Joseph Smoyer (Portland, Ore./Franklin HS) signed a National Letter of Intent and will join the Pilots next season.
• Smoyer has started for the Quakers each of the last three seasons earning All-Portland Interscholastic League First Team honors last season. He was honorable mention all-league in both his freshman and sophomore seasons.
• Smoyer joins previous signee Alec Monson to comprise the Class of 2016. Monson signed in 2014 and will return from a two-year church mission next season.
• An elite student, Smoyer is currently the senior class President and has been admitted to the University of Portland Shiley School of Engineering.

PILOTS REMEMBER LONGTIME RADIO ANNOUNCER, BILL JOHNSON
• Bill Johnson, the radio play-by-play voice of the University of Portland's men's basketball program for 23 years, died of heart failure on Sunday, Nov. 29 at the age of 71.
• A memorial service in Bill's honor took place on Tuesday, Jan. 5 at the Chapel of Christ the Teacher on the UP campus. The entire Pilots team, coaching staff, school administrators, family and friends paid their respects.
• His distinguished broadcasting career spanned six decades and included various radio and TV positions in the Portland market. He served as the basketball play-by-play voice at various times throughout his career with the Oregon, Linfield, Lewis & Clark and Sonoma State. He also was with the Portland Trail Blazers from 1974-76. Johnson's football play-by-play experience included time with Oregon, Portland State and Lewis & Clark College and most recently with Linfield College.
• Johnson had three stints with the Pilots, first with the 1977-78 team and then a 16-year run from 1986-01 which included Portland's run to the 1996 NCAA Tournament. He re-joined the Pilots for the last six seasons.

PILOTS ANNOUNCE PARTNERSHIP WITH COMCAST SPORTSNET
• Portland and Comcast SportsNet announced a partnership that will televise eight upcoming Pilot events, including the Jan. 28 men's basketball game versus San Francisco.
• Three women's basketball games and four baseball games will also be aired.
• This is in addition to the monthly 30-minute show, 'Portside with the Pilots' which showcases student-athlete profiles, alumni spotlights, top plays, and behind-the-scenes access to Pilot Athletics.
• The show launched last January and the 14th episode is scheduled to air on Tuesday, Feb. 16 at 9 p.m.
• All episodes are archived at YouTube.com/PortlandPilots.

PILOTS INK MULTI-YEAR DEAL WITH 910 ESPN-PORTLAND
• Portland and Entercom Portland, LLC will continue their men's basketball partnership for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons on 910 ESPN-Portland (KMTT). In addition to live coverage of all exhibition, regular season, and postseason games, a weekly one-hour Portland Pilots Basketball Show featuring head coach Eric Reveno will be produced every Monday night at 7 p.m. throughout the basketball season.