Portland Pilots (0-0, 0-0 WCC) vs. Lewis & Clark Pioneers (0-0, 0-0 NWC)
Date: Monday, Nov. 7, 2022
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Place: Portland, Ore.
Arena: Chiles Center
Video: WCC Network
Radio: 910 ESPN Portland (KMTT)
Live Coverage Links: Video I Audio I Stats
Tickets: PortlandPilots.com/Tickets

Portland Pilots (0-0, 0-0 WCC) vs. Florida A&M Rattlers (0-0, 0-0 SWAC)
Date: Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Place: Portland, Ore.
Arena: Chiles Center
Video: WCC Network
Radio: 910 ESPN Portland (KMTT)
Live Coverage Links: Video I Audio I Stats
Tickets: PortlandPilots.com/Tickets

Portland Pilots (0-0, 0-0 WCC) vs. Portland State Vikings (0-0, 0-0 Big Sky)
Date: Friday, Nov. 11, 2022
Time: 7 p.m.
Place: Portland, Ore.
Arena: Chiles Center
TV: Portland's CW (KRCW)
Radio: 910 ESPN Portland (KMTT)
Live Coverage Links: Video I Audio I Stats
Tickets: PortlandPilots.com/Tickets

THIS WEEK
• The Pilots open the 2022-23 regular season with a Chiles Center doubleheader on Monday, Nov. 7. The Portland women host Willamette at 5 p.m. followed by the men versus Lewis & Clark at 7:30 p.m. Action continues with another doubleheader on Wednesday, Nov. 9 as the women welcome Hawaii at 5 p.m. and men host Florida A&M at 7:30 p.m. The season-opening homestand concludes on Friday, Nov. 11 against crosstown rival Portland State at 7 p.m.
• Season tickets, mini packages and single-game tickets can be found online at PortlandPilots.com/Tickets, while the gameday promotions schedule is at PortlandPilots.com/Promotions.

GAME COVERAGE
• All three games will have online coverage via the WCC Network. Bryan Sleik and Jennifer Mountain will call the doubleheaders, while Friday's game will also be televised on Portland's CW (KRCW) with Ann Schatz and Jennifer Mountain broadcasting.
• Radio coverage for all Portland men's basketball games is on 910 ESPN Portland (KMTT) with Jason Swygard and Joel Sobotka on the call. The pre-game show begins 30 minutes prior to tip-off and coverage concludes with a post-game featuring stats, highlights and interviews.
• Live coverage links for Portland games can be found at PortlandPilots.com.
• Follow @PortlandMBB on Twitter and Instagram for the latest team content.

PRESEASON RECOGNITION
• Portland was picked fifth in the WCC Preseason Coaches Poll, trailing only Gonzaga, Saint Mary's, San Francisco and BYU.
• Tyler Robertson was also named to the 10-player WCC Preseason Team.
• Andy Katz recognized Shantay Legans as on the his Top 10 Rising Coaches nationally and the Pilots as one of the Top 11 most improved teams in college basketball.
• Kevin Sweeney of Sports Illustrated also named Legans as one of his 10 Coaches on the Rise, nationally.
• ESPN.com identified Portland as the surprise 'sleeper team' of the West Coast Conference.

A SEASON TO BUILD ON
• The Pilots are coming off one of the most successful seasons in program history under first-year head coach Shantay Legans. The team was 19-15 overall and finished sixth in the WCC, recording their highest win total since 2010 and their fourth-highest total since joining Division I in 1958. Their 7-7 record in WCC play was also the best since 2015.
• Portland won the program's first postseason game in program history with a rout of New Orleans in The Basketball Classic.
• The Pilots return the top seven scorers and all major contributors to the roster for this season. With 91.1 percent of the team's scoring returning, Portland trails only Virginia (91.4) nationally for returning scoring production.
• Tyler Robertson (15.3 ppg) earned All-WCC Second Team honors last season, while Moses Wood (14.2 ppg) garnered honorable mention recognition. Chris Austin (14.3 ppg), Mike Meadows (10.2 ppg), Chika Nduka and Kristian Sjolund also were primary starters, while the team welcomes back graduate student Jack Perry from a medical redshirt and sophomore big man Vasilije Vucinic.

ROBERTSON IN RARE COMPANY
• Robertson posted a remarkable 31-point, 11-rebound, 11-assist triple-double in a Feb. 12 win over LMU to join teammate Mike Meadows as the only players in program history to record a triple-double – Meadows did so against Willamette University. Only 26 players in the nation last season had triple-doubles and Portland and Western Kentucky were the only programs with multiple players recording triple-doubles.
• Robertson became the only NCAA Division I player in the last 25 years to log a 30-point triple-double, make 5-plus threes without a miss (5-for-5) and drill 10-plus free throws without a miss (10-for-10) in his remarkable performance against LMU. No other player has achieved all three of those marks throughout an entire career, but Robertson accomplished it a single game.
• He was one of only five players in the nation last year to average at least 15.0 points, 6.0 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game. The others were Alondes Williams (Wake Forest), Tosan Evbuomwan (Princeton), Ahsan Asadullah (Lipscomb) and Baylor Scheierman (South Dakota State).
• The Melbourne, Australia native was also the only player to rank top 10 in the WCC in points (7th), rebounds (10th) and assists (4th) last season.

BALANCED ATTACK
• Four Pilots averaged double figures last season, while Kristian Sjolund and Chika Nduka came on late in the year to provide great production.
• Sjolund went for career highs of 23 points and 18 rebounds in a Feb. 8 win at San Francisco to become just the fourth Pilot since 2000 to score at least 20 points and grab 18 or more rebounds in a game.
• Nduka, a true freshman, started all 14 league games and averaged 9.8 points and 6.6 rebounds during WCC play but was not selected to the All-WCC Freshman Team.

SETTING RECORDS
• Portland ranked seventh in the nation in free throw percentage (.791) to establish a new UP single-season record. The Pilots also finished 12th in free throws made (544) nationally last year.
• The Pilots set a single game scoring record in a 122-78 victory over Willamette, eclipsing the 115 scored against St. Martin's in 1978.
• Portland also broke the program's single game three-pointers made record with 18 against VMI on Dec. 3. The team's 264 three-pointers made marked the second most in single-season history (289 in 2015-16).
• Robertson ranked second in the WCC and 22nd in the nation in free throw percentage (.883) and had a streak of 34 consecutive free throws made snapped at Pacific on Feb. 24. He currently tops the UP career record book for free throw percentage.

THE NEWCOMERS
• Coach Legans brought in a talented recruiting class including four transfers and five freshmen. The additions of 6-foot-10 grad transfer Joey St. Pierre (Milwaukee), 6-foot-9 former WAC Freshman of the Year Wyatt Lowell (Utah Valley/BYU/Snow JC) and 6-11 Australian National Teamer Bol Dengdit (NBA Academy) give the Pilots more size this season.

THE SCHEDULE
• The team will play a challenging non-league schedule highlighted by co-hosting the Phil Knight Invitational and opening the tournament on Thanksgiving Day against North Carolina.
• Other notable non-league opponents include home games against Portland State, Seattle U and North Dakota State, as well as road contests at Oregon, Kent State, Air Force and UC Riverside.
• Portland will not host BYU or visit Santa Clara as part of the WCC's unbalanced league schedule.

HEAD COACH SHANTAY LEGANS
• Legans was hired in March of 2021 after he led Eastern Washington to the 2021 NCAA Tournament. In his four years as head coach at EWU, Legans compiled the school's best overall (.605) and conference (.726) win percentages.
• Legans finished third or better in the Big Sky Conference all four seasons, led the Eagles to the 2020 regular season crown and 2021 tournament title.
• His teams improve each year as the season progresses best illustrated by his 47-18 (.723) record in games played after Feb. 1 in five years as a head coach.
• All three assistant coaches are back this year for the Pilots. Bobby Suarez and T.J. Lipold came with Legans from Eastern Washington, while Jeremy Pope came on board after coaching most recently at Arizona Compass Prep.
• Legans' staff is one of the youngest in the nation as all three assistant coaches are 34 or younger.

WE'RE RIVERBOAT PILOTS, NOT AIRPLANE PILOTS!
• Though the original nickname that students chose in a 1935 contest resulted in "Chinooks" (after the Native American tribe that inhabited the area, and the largest of the salmon species in the Willamette River), the "Pilots" was chosen by presidential fiat. From that day forward, The Bluff had a new mascot, and he was Wally Pilot.
• When the University changed its name from Columbia University (its earliest sports teams were known as the Cliff dwellers or the Columbias), to the University of Portland in 1935, the name and University had already begun to adapt a more "nautical motif," suitable for a campus site overlooking the Willamette River. At the same time, the Pilot athletic teams became associated with Wally (a stylized riverboat pilot), and the pilot's wheel became the logical logo.

TV SCHEDULE
• Portland is scheduled to have a minimum of seven nationally-televised games and a total of 16 regular season games on TV this season. Five games will air on the ESPN family of networks, two on CBS Sports Network, two on ROOT Sports Northwest and five locally on Portland's CW (KRCW). Visit PortlandPilots.com complete TV listings.

ABOUT LEWIS & CLARK
• The Pioneers are a member of the NCAA Division III Northwest Conference.
• Lewis & Clark dropped a 98-49 decision at Oregon State in an exhibition game on Oct. 29. Jack Henderson scored a team-high 20 points and Brenden Patrick added 12 points for the Pios.
• Head coach Tim McCrory is entering his fifth year at the helm.
Series: Portland leads 23-1
H / A / N:  13-0 / 4-1 / 6-0
Streak: Portland W15
Last 10 / 5: 10-0 / 5-0
Last: Pilots 77, Pioneers 57 (Nov. 19, 2018 at UP)

ABOUT FLORIDA A&M
• The Rattlers are a member of the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) and open the regular season on Monday at Oregon. FAMU was picked to finish fifth in the SWAC Preseason Poll.
• The Rattlers finished the 2021-22 season with a 13-17 overall record and 11-8 mark in league play.
• Head coach Robert McCullum is entering his sixth season with FAMU and he has guided the Rattlers to winning records in SWAC play each season.
Series: Portland leads 2-0
H / A / N: 2-0 / 0-0 / 0-0
Streak: Portland W2
Last 10 / 5: 2-0 / 2-0
Last: Pilots 66, Rattlers 60 (Dec. 16, 2019 at UP)

ABOUT PORTLAND STATE
• The Vikings do not play a regular season game before visiting the Chiles Center on Friday.
• Portland State was picked seventh in both the media and coaches Big Sky Conference Preseason Poll.
• PSU made a late-season run in 2021-22, winning 10 of 13 games over one stretch, and reached the Big Sky Tournament semifinals before falling to runner up UNC. They finished 14-17 overall and 10-10 in league play.
• Head coach Jace Coburn is entering his second season at the helm. The Vikings have four returners and 10 newcomers this season.
Series: Portland leads 39-20
H / A / N: 26-13 / 11-6 / 2-1
Streak: Portland W3
Last 10 / 5: 6-4 / 3-2
Last: Pilots 69, Vikings 54 (Nov. 23, 2021 at PSU)