PORTLAND, Ore. – There are few things that college basketball coaches value more than continuity. When building a successful program, the best path to success is to find your players and build that culture early on with guys that fit what you want to do.

Shantay Legans didn't have that luxury when he came to Portland. After arriving on The Bluff as the new head coach of Portland Pilots men's basketball, fresh off winning the Big Sky Tournament with the Eastern Washington Eagles and pushing the basketball powerhouse that is the Kansas Jayhawks in the first round of the 2021 NCAA Tournament, Legans suddenly had to put together an entirely new team in Portland.

"That was wild," Legans admitted. "It was kind of like you're trying to rebuild from scratch, because we were."

It was a tall task for the former Big Sky Coach of the Year, but he and his staff managed to pull it off. This year's roster features 17 players, 14 of whom are newcomers. Seven of those newcomers are freshman while the other seven come to Portland via the transfer portal.

Having as many newcomers as Portland does is certainly not the norm. But while it's no easy task filling out a whole roster, it leaves a coach with plenty of possibilities. It's almost like starting a new season of NBA 2K's MyLeague mode and doing a fantasy draft; you have a clean slate to choose whoever you want to build a roster. Legans and his staff had the opportunity to completely rebuild the team in their image.

"As we started going through the whole process of trying to find guys to come into our school, we had to find the right fit, and so we weren't just out grabbing guys," Legans said. "We're finding guys that would fit our system, fit the characteristics we're looking for."

Legans didn't make the move from Cheney alone, bringing along two assistants – T.J. Lipold and Bobby Suarez – as well as three players in Mike Meadows, Tyler Robertson and Jack Perry. All three of those players experienced success with the Eagles; Meadows started almost every game last season, Robertson was named the top reserve in the Big Sky and Perry was an important role player all four years.

Along with those three, the other four transfers come to Portland with a wealth of experience. Moses Wood, formerly the No. 5 prospect in Nevada, joins the Pilots after stints at Tulane and UNLV and brings versatility to the frontcourt. Matheus Silveira, a 7-0 center from Brazil, played at Austin Peay before spending a year at Pensacola State College – a junior college in Florida – and brings valuable size.

Chris Austin was the leading scorer at Fordham last season and gives the backcourt go-to scoring power. Kristian Sjolund joins the Pilots as a sharpshooter with high-level experience at both Georgia Tech and UTEP. Each transfer has a different skill that Legans values, but most importantly, they all have that high-level experience and will play a key role in helping shape the future of UP basketball. Every transfer has multiple years of eligibility remaining.

"When you're looking at those types of guys, you're looking at building for the future, so we got one senior," Legans said. "We got all sophomores and freshmen after that from an eligibility perspective, and our freshmen are 19, 20 years old and our sophomores are 21, 22, 23 years old."
 
The freshmen are equally as interesting as Yaru Harvey and Skylar Wilson both come to Portland after playing with SoCal Academy, where they each played against high-level competition. Harvey is a "true point guard" as Legans puts it while Wilson brings size and versatility to the backcourt at 6-7. Chika Nduka and Coleman Lemke are promising walk-ons as well.

The other three freshmen all bring an international flavor to the team. Nikola Milosevic and Vasilije Vucinic both hail from Montenegro and have experience playing for their youth national teams. Vucinic was even a regular rotation player for the U-18 squad that tied for the best record in Group B at the 2019 FIBA European Championships.

Matija Svetozarevic rounds out the international players for Portland, a critical late addition for the Pilots. The Serbian wing averaged 12 points and six rebounds per contest with the U-19 team at KK Dynamic – one of the top teams in Serbia – and even made five appearances for the senior team that regular plays in Serbia's top league. He also brings national team experience to The Bluff, having played with Serbia's U-16 team at the 2018 FIBA European Championships and being invited to camp with the 2018 team before the tournament's cancellation due to COVID.

For freshmen, whether you're coming from California or Serbia, it's a big adjustment playing at the college level. But Legans has been impressed with how they've handled the new environment.

"I think they've done an amazing job picking different things up," Legans said. "You know, you look at the freshmen and everything's brand new to them and you look at the international kids and, again, everything's brand new to them … but at the same time, there's still a level of freedom they haven't gotten, so watching the whole group try to figure it out has been pretty fun."

With the team being almost entirely newcomers, it can be difficult to piece together how they'll all play together. But looking at past Eastern Washington squads could give one an idea of what Legans expects from his teams.

For starters, his teams move quick. At least recently. The Eagles ranked 27^th in the nation and tops in the Big Sky in adjusted tempo last season, averaging just over 72 possessions per 40 minutes per KenPom. The year before they were even quicker, averaging 73 possessions per 40 minutes.

Legans's teams have ranked first in in the Big Sky in assists per game in each of the past two years. They averaged 15.2 assists per game last year and 17.6 the season prior. Legans knows the value of assists, noting that back in his college playing days at Cal and Fresno State, he wanted to break Duke legend and current Arizona State head coach Bobby Hurley's assist record.

"When I was at college, I wanted to beat Bobby Hurley's assist record … I didn't realize that he had all those extra games in there," Legans said with a laugh. "He was also better, so that always helps."

Only one Big Sky team – Southern Utah – shot more threes than Eastern Washington last season, who took 574 threes. But the high volume of threes wasn't something that came as an analytically driven directive. It was more of a product of who they had on the roster and who could shoot those kinds of shots. 
That's because Legans and his staff approach offense as an individual's chance to show what they can do best. If Legans recruits you, he's not bringing you in so that he can mold you into what he wants you to be; he wants to help you become an actualized version of yourself.

"You want them to use their creativity on the offensive side," Legans said. "I want them to be who they are on offense."

Looking at past Eastern Washington squads once again underscores this idea. Eastern may have shot more threes than almost everyone in the conference, but they were most efficient scoring inside the arc, especially on two-point jumpers. They ranked fifth in the nation at 45.4 percent in two-point jumper field goal percentage. That's a product of Legans encouraging his players to shoot the shots they're most comfortable with.

"I've had different players do different things," Legans said. "Mike Meadows is a good three-point shooter, but he likes to shoot mid-range jump shots. Tyler Robertson likes to post-up – he's 6-6 – but he also shoots threes. You just find the guys that you know you want to build around and it'll be different."

Legans pointed out that every year his team have built a different kind of offense depending on personnel. His past two teams have all been fast-paced teams that aren't afraid to shoot from outside, but in his first two years as head coach, his teams ranked 258th and 163rd in possessions per 40 minutes.

And even then, as Legans pointed out, just because the team numbers shake out a certain way doesn't mean that that's the only kind of players who have succeeded under him. There's not just one style of player that can thrive with coach Legans.

"With all our three-point shooting, with all our fast pace of play, my last two MVPs of the Big Sky (Tanner Groves and Mason Peatling) were post players," Legans said. "Two back-to-the-basket post players. So it's like 'Well, they play that fast and let their guys do this, that and the other' but our two MVPs in back-to-back seasons, two different guys in the same position."

It's all about playing the right way for Legans, with an offense predicated on not looking for any specific kind of shot other than the best one. It's why when Legans began building out his team, he went and found players that can do a wide variety of things on the court. That being said, Legans admits he has a penchant for guys that can shoot.

"I love versatile guys that can shoot," Legans said. "If you look at our roster, all our guys are versatile and all of them can really shoot … Moses (Wood) can play multiple positions, Tyler (Robertson) can play multiple positions, Kristian (Sjolund) can play multiple positions."

Everyone offensively is skilled for the Pilots, but it's not just about skill; it's about showing a level of toughness and intensity on the court. That's where the defensive philosophy starts to shine. To describe that, Legans points to a saying from Lipold: "On defense, we play tough. On offense, we play hoops."
At the college level, lots of players get recruited because of the skill they show on the offensive end. Few teams recruit guys solely based on defensive prowess. Legans points to Kelvin Sampson's Houston squads as a rare example of a team built around defenders. Legans sees his job as two-fold: Finding the guys who can translate that skill and IQ to the defensive end and finding guys who want to defend.

"When you're not playing, and the only reason you're not playing is because you're not playing tough, you'll play tough," Legans said. "No one likes to sit out, and so you figure it out and you find the five, six, seven, eight guys that want to play tough."

Legans has had no problem finding those guys in the past. Last season, Eastern Washington was third in the Big Sky in adjusted defensive efficiency (101.3) per KenPom. They held teams to just a 48 percent effective field-goal percentage (75^th in the nation, first in the Big Sky) and ranked second in the conference and defensive rebounding at just under 28 per game. Legans doesn't just preach the playing tough; he gets his guys to do it.

Legans has had his triumphs, but prior success doesn't guarantee future success. For all his success with the Eagles, Legans is taking over a program that has won just 43 games in the past five seasons and only one conference game in the past three years.  

But Legans is no stranger to having his team considered underdogs. In his eyes, the Pilots have an entirely blank canvas. Portland's struggles have lowered expectations, but with an entirely new staff and team, they have a chance to catch the WCC by surprise.

"The advantage is that they don't know what they don't know," Legans said when talking about his new team. "They weren't part of the team that has won one game in the last three years so as we move forward together, I don't know what I don't know here … We think "Hey, we're gonna come here and do our very best.'"

The road ahead certainly isn't easy. The WCC is one of the stronger mid-major conferences, but on top of that, Portland has a couple high-level nonconference games scheduled, including their season opener on Nov. 9 against the Arizona State Sun Devils and their Dec. 15 matchup against the Oregon Ducks.

Legans may not have bested Hurley as a player, but he'll have a chance to do so as a coach to start the year. And beyond that game, the Pilots have a shot to show the WCC that Portland isn't worried about whatever expectations are placed on them. All they're focused on is building a winner on The Bluff. They're ready to show that here in Portland, they play hoops.