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Portland Pilots (9-15, 3-8) at Pepperdine Waves (14-8, 7-4)
Date: Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016
Tip-off: 8:00 p.m.
Location: Malibu, Calif.
Arena: Firestone Fieldhouse
TV: ESPNU
Radio: 910 ESPN-Portland (KMTT)
Live Stats: PortlandPilots.com
Portland vs. Pepperdine Series
Overall: 36-58
At POR: 21-24
At PEP: 13-29
Neutral: 2-5
Last 1: POR 87, PEP 79 (Dec. 23 at Portland)
COMING UP
• Portland visits Pepperdine for a nationally televised game Thursday night at 8 p.m.
• The Pilots will then conclude the road trip at Loyola Marymount on Saturday with a 3 p.m. tip-off.
GAME COVERAGE
• Thursday's game will be televised live on ESPNU with Roxy Bernstein and Corey Williams calling the action.
• Saturday's game at LMU will be aired on TheW.tv.
• 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 (9-15, 3-8 WCC) were swept at home last week with losses to San Francisco (87-76) and Santa Clara (90-84). Portland has lost four in a row and eight of nine.
• Junior PG Alec Wintering scored 31 points in Saturday's loss to Santa Clara, his third 30-point game of the season.
• Wintering scored 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 27 points shy of his 1,000th career point as well.
• Portland is 1-9 away from Chiles Center with the lone win at Portland State.
• A three-year starter and Preseason All-WCC selection, Wintering is second in the WCC in steals (1.8), fourth in scoring (18.5) and fifth in assists (5.4). His 22.2 points per game in WCC play ranks second behind Gonzaga's Kyle Wiltjer.
• Portland is 24th nationally in three-pointers made per game (9.4). The Pilots lead the WCC steals (7.4) and rank second in three-pointers made, turnover margin (+2.3) and blocked shots (4.1).
• Portland is attempting 25.3 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.
• The Pilots were picked fifth in the West Coast Conference Preseason Coaches' Poll.
ABOUT PEPPERDINE
• The Waves (14-8, 7-4 WCC) sit alone in fourth place in the WCC standings after splitting a road trip last weekend. Pepperdine defeated San Diego and lost to BYU.
• After opening WCC play with losses to Gonzaga and the Pilots, the Waves won 7-of-8 games before Saturday's loss to BYU.
• Junior F Lamond Murray Jr. (16.0) and senior F Stacy Davis (14.0) lead the scoring.
• Head coach Marty Wilson is in his fifth year at the helm and the Waves were picked to finish third in the WCC after returning all five starters and 12 lettermen from last year's team that finished 18-14 overall and fourth in the league standings.
• Portland defeated Pepperdine 87-79 on Dec. 23 behind a career-high 34 points from Alec Wintering.
TYSON PROVIDES INSTANT OFFENSE
• Sophomore G D'Marques Tyson earned his first career start on Thursday against San Francisco and responded with a career-high 27 points, including eight three-pointers.
• Tyson is averaging 18.0 points per game over the last five games hitting a combined 25 three-pointers in those five outings.
• Tyson leads the Pilots and ranks third in the WCC with 2.7 threes made per game. That averaged has jumped to 3.3 per game in league play.
• He has now drained four or more three-pointers eight times this season.
• His 22.3 points per 40 minutes are second on the Pilot roster to Wintering (24.1).
• Perhaps most impressive has been Tyson's improved defense. He was the primary defender against BYU's Kyle Collinsworth as the Pilots held him to 10 points on 4-of-17 shooting.
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 1,000 career points. He currently has 973 career points, but his value has been in his versatility.
• Pressley ranks seventh in UP history for three-point percentage (.402), seventh in three-pointers made (144), 12th in assists (291), 15th in career steals (110) and 20th in blocked shots (44).
HARTWICH ALSO MOVES INTO STARTING ROLE
• Sophomore C Philipp Hartwich also earned his first career start on Thursday in place of injured Ray Barreno (concussion). Barreno returned on Saturday, but Hartwich remained the starter.
• The Cologne, Germany native grabbed six rebounds and blocked two shots in 18 effective minutes against USF. He leads the Pilots this season in blocked shots (27).
• A previous member of Germany's Team Handball Youth National Team, Hartwich is a quality athlete that has only been playing organized basketball for four seasons.
HOME/ROAD SPLITS
• Portland is 8-6 at home and 1-7 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 73.5 and allowing 83.9. Portland shoots just 40 percent, while opponents shoot 48 percent.
WINTERING JOINS 1,000-POINT CLUB
• Alec Wintering 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.
• Earlier in WCC play Alec Wintering became the first Pilot with back-to-back 30-point games in school history.
• 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.
• 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).
• Wintering's 22.2 points per game in WCC play is second overall.
• He is No. 2 all-time for UP in assists per game (5.2), No. 4 in three-point percentage (.419), No. 5 in total assists (439) and No. 7 in steals (135).
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 (.796).
• Alec Wintering, who was shooting a career-low 67 percent entering the USF game has now made all 56-of-his-last-61 attempts and now sits at 77.3 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 7.4 points and posting a 1.7 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.
LATE GAME STRUGGLES
• The Pilots have struggled to close out games all season. Portland tied the game at Pacific four times and had nine possesssions 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.
LMU VICTORY LARGEST MARGIN SINCE 2010
• Portland's 87-60 win over LMU Monday night was the largest margin of victory for the Pilots against a WCC opponent since a 79-39 defeat of LMU on Jan. 21, 2010.
• The Pilots trailed 19-11 early, but used a 23-0 run to take the lead and held the Lions without a field goal for 9:02 late in the first half.
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.
