Game Notes (PDF) I Video I Audio I StatsPortland Pilots (12-17, 6-10) at BYU Cougars (21-8, 12-4)Date: Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016
Tip-off: 8:00 p.m. (PT)
Location: Provo, Utah
Arena: Marriott Center
TV: ESPNU
Radio: 910 ESPN-Portland (KMTT)
Live Stats: PortlandPilots.com
POR vs. BYU SeriesOverall: 2-13
At POR: 2-5
At BYU: 0-7
Neutral: 0-1
Last 1: POR 84, BYU 81 (Jan. 16 at Portland)
THIS WEEK• Portland concludes the 2015-16 regular season this week with a road trip to BYU and San Diego.
• The Pilots visit BYU on Thursday for an 8 p.m. (PT) tip-off and then visit San Diego on Saturday at 6 p.m.
GAME COVERAGE• Thursday's game will be nationally televised on ESPNU with Roxy Bernstein and Corey Williams calling the action.
• Saturday's game will be televised on ROOT Sports NW, TWC SportsNet and CSN California with Chris McGee and Dave Miller on the call.
• 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 (12-17, 6-10 WCC) split their final homestand with a close loss to Saint Mary's on Thursday and comfortable win over Pacific on Saturday.
• Portland dropped a heartbreaker to Saint Mary's as Joe Rahon hit a runner with 2.7 seconds left to give the Gaels a 74-72 win. The game featured 19 ties and 16 lead changes.
• Senior G Bryce Pressley eclipsed the 1,000-point mark for his career on Thursday after finishing with a game-high 25 points. Pressley joins backcourt teammate Alec Wintering as players to join the club this season.
• The Pilots rebounded with an 80-67 win over Pacific on Senior Night. Wintering scored a game-high 27 points, while Pressley added 15 points, four assists, three steals and three blocked shots in his final game at the Chiles Center.
• Wintering, a two-time WCC Player of the Week this season, 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. He is on pace to set Portland's single-season scoring record this year.
• A three-year starter and Preseason All-WCC selection, Wintering is second in the WCC in steals (1.6), fourth in scoring (18.9) and fifth in assists (5.1). His 21.8 points per game in WCC play ranks second behind Gonzaga's Kyle Wiltjer.
• Portland is 28th nationally in three-pointers made per game (9.1). The Pilots lead the WCC in three-pointers made and steals (6.8), and rank second in turnover margin (+1.5) and blocked shots (4.0).
• Portland is attempting 24.8 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 nine players averaging 11 or more minutes.
• Pressley, also a three-year starter, is averaging a career-best 13.9 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 BYU• The Cougars (21-8, 12-4 WCC) swept a home-and-home series with San Diego last week, defeating the Toreros 69-67 at USD on Thursday and then erupting for a 91-33 home win on Saturday.
• BYU is the highest scoring team in the WCC at 84.0 per game and has four players averaging double figures. Senior G Chase Fischer leads the way at 18.0 per game.
• Head coach Dave Rose is in his 11th year at BYU.
• The Pilots defeated the Cougars by an 84-81 margin earlier this season in Portland as Alec Wintering, Bryce Pressley and D'Marques Tyson combined for 64 points. BYU won all three meetings last season, including in the WCC Tournament semifinals.
IT'S ALL-ACADEMIC• Portland had two players recognized on the WCC All-Academic Team.
• Senior F Max Livingston earned first team honors. He has a 3.66 cumulative GPA and will graduate this May with a degree in marketing.
• Sophomore F Gabe Taylor earned honorable mention honors. He posts a 3.18 GPA and is planning to major in business.
• During head coach Eric Reveno's tenure, the Pilots have had 18 total WCC All-Academic Team selections and Reveno has graduated every player that has completed their eligibility with the Pilots.
SENIOR NIGHT• Portland recognized its two seniors prior to tip-off on Saturday as part of Senior Night.
• Max Livingston earned his third start of the season and dished out two assists.
• Bryce Pressley had a typically solid all-around game with 15 points, four assists, four steals and four blocked shots. Pressley was also honored pregame for becoming Portland's 39th 1,000-point scorer. His 25-point performance two nights earlier against Saint Mary's pushed over the plateau.
• The son of former Villanova NCAA Champion and NBA guard Harold Pressley, Bryce now has 1,036 career points, but his value has been in his versatility. He ranks seventh in UP history in three-pointers made (149), eighth in three-point percentage (.397), 12th in assists (306), tied for 11th in career steals (115) and tied for 16th in blocks (47).
WINTERING APPROACHING SINGLE SEASON SCORING RECORD• Alec Wintering is tied for fourth all-time in single season scoring with 549 points this year. He has matched Peter McKelvey (1991-92). Next on the list is Jose Slaughter (577, 1980-81) and Casey Frandsen (577, 2001-02).
• The school record of 587 was established by Rick Raivio during the 1978-79 season.
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 Feb. 8 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. He averaged 24.5 points, 7.0 rebounds and 6.5 assists in UP's road sweep that week.
• 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 21.8 points per game in WCC play is second overall.
• He is No. 3 all-time for UP in assists per game (5.1), No. 4 in three-point percentage (.421), No. 5 in total assists (457) and tied for sixth in steals (139).
MARSHALL BREAKS OUT• Junior F Jarrel Marshall had a breakout weekend in Southern California and then continued his great play with a career-high 25 points against Gonzaga on Feb. 11.
• 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 on Feb. 4. 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.
• He carried that momentum into a 25-point performance against Gonzaga, including 11-of-18 from the field.
TYSON PROVIDES INSTANT OFFENSE• Sophomore G D'Marques Tyson has averaged 15.4 points per game over the last 10 contests.
• Tyson is averaging 4.1 threes made per game during his hot run, hitting 41-of-86 (.477) 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 third in the WCC with 2.8 threes made per game. That averaged has jumped to a league-leading 3.3 per game in WCC play.
• He has now drained four or more three-pointers 10 times this season.
• His 21.6 points per 40 minutes are second on the Pilot roster to Wintering (23.9).
• 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.
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 leads the league in free throw percentage in WCC games (.786).
• Alec Wintering was shooting a career-low 67 percent entering the USF game, but now sits at 78.1 percent.
THREE-POINT THREATS• Portland drilled 15 three-pointers at LMU on Feb. 6, 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 28th nationally in threes per game (9.1).
• 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 and Thursday's narrow loss to Saint Mary's was the latest heartbreaker.
• Portland previously tied the game at Pacific four times on Jan. 21 and had nine possessions with a chance to tie or take the lead come up empty.
• Portland led by 15 late at San Francisco on Dec. 31, 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 Jan. 2, 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 a 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.
• 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.
