Portland Pilots (16-12, 6-6 WCC) at Pacific Tigers (8-19, 3-9 WCC)
Date: Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022
Time: 7 p.m.
Place: Stockton, Calif.
Arena: Spanos Center
Video: WCC Network
Radio: 910 ESPN Portland
Live Coverage Links: Video I Audio I Stats

THIS WEEK
• Portland concludes the regular season with a road trip to Pacific and Santa Clara. The Pilots visit Stockton, Calif. to take on the Pacific Tigers on Thursday at 7 p.m. and then meet the Santa Clara Broncos on Saturday at 2 p.m. Both games will be aired on the WCC network.
• Portland will look for the season sweep of Pacific, while the Pilots and Broncos meet for the first time this year after Santa Clara canceled the rescheduled game in Portland on Feb. 14.
• Thursday's radio coverage will be on 910 ESPN Portland (KMTT) and Saturday's game has been moved to 1080 The Fan (KFXX) with Jason Swygard calling the action. The program begins 30 minutes prior to tip-off and the concludes with a full post-game show.
• Live coverage links for Portland games can be found at PortlandPilots.com.
• Follow @PortlandMBB on Twitter for in-game updates.

ABOUT THE PILOTS
• Portland has won five straight games for the second time this season after a thrilling 77-74 victory over Pepperdine on Saturday. Tyler Robertson converted a go-ahead three-point play with less than 30 seconds remaining and the Pilots got a big defensive stop to secure the win. Moses Wood finished with a career-high 24 points, while Robertson added 22 points and nine assists.
• Two days earlier, Portland shot a season-high 63 percent from the field as all five starters reached double figures led by 26 points from Chris Austin in a 92-60 win against San Diego. The 32-point win margin is the largest over a WCC opponent since a 79-39 decision against LMU on Jan. 21, 2010.
• Portland's six league victories are the program's most since the 2015-16 squad picked up six wins, while UP is guaranteed at least a .500 record for the first time since the 2014-15 season (17-16). Portland's current four-game WCC win streak is also the first since 2015.
• Tyler 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 earlier this season against Willamette University. Only 17 players in the nation this season have triple-doubles.
• Robertson is 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). No other player has achieved all of those marks in an entire career, let alone all in one game.
• Kristian 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. Sjolund is averaging 15.4 points and 8.4 rebounds over the last five games.
• Chika Nduka is averaging 9.8 points and 6.7 rebounds during WCC play. Among all true freshmen during league games, he trails only Gonzaga's Chet Holmgren and BYU's Fousseyni Traore in scoring and rebounds.
• Moses Wood logged his fourth double-double of the season with 19 points and 10 rebounds against San Diego.
• Robertson ranks top 10 in the WCC in scoring (6th), rebounds (9th) and assists (4th). Eli Scott (LMU) is the only other player to rank Top 10 in all three categories.
• Portland ranks second in the nation in free throw percentage (.807) and lead the country in free throws made (464). Robertson leads the league and ranks second in the nation in free throw percentage (.927) and has made 34 consecutive free throws.
• Meadows recorded the first triple-double in program history with 15 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists against Willamette on Nov. 11. The Pilots also set a new single game scoring record in the 122-78 victory, eclipsing the 115 scored against St. Martin's in 1978.
• The Pilots broke the program's single game three-pointers made record with 18 against VMI on Dec. 3.
• Shantay Legans was hired last March after he led Eastern Washington to the NCAA Tournament. In his four years as head coach at EWU, Legans compiled the school's best overall (.605) and conference (.726) win percentages.
• Portland returns two players from last year's roster and adds seven transfers and seven true freshmen. The 14 newcomers are tied with UT-Martin for the most in Division I this season.
• The seven incoming transfers are fourth most in the nation, while Portland's returners accounted for less than one percent of the scoring production last season, which is second lowest nationally.
• Portland has a total of seven international players on the roster.
• The Pilots signed NBA Academy and Australian National Teamer Bol Dengdit to a NLI and he will join the program for the 2021-22 season. Dengdit was recently called up to the Boomers to compete in the FIBA Asian Qualifiers in Japan.
• 14 Pilot graduates are currently playing professionally, while alum Erik Spoelstra ('92) has won two NBA Championships as head coach of the Miami HEAT. Ben Sullivan ('07) also won a title last spring as a member of the Milwaukee Bucks coaching staff and is now an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics.
• Portland has partnered with Portland's CW (KRCW-TV) to televise several home events this season while a minimum of 12 Pilot games will be aired on either Portland's CW, ROOT Sports Northwest or Stadium.
 
ABOUT PACIFIC
• The Tigers (3-9, 8-19 WCC) have won league games against BYU, Pepperdine and LMU, but dropped a 104-71 home game to San Francisco on Monday.
• Pacific posted non-league Division I wins against UC Santa Barbara, Chicago State and Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Notable losses came UTEP, UC Davis (twice) and California.
• Jeremiah Bailey (11.4), Alphonso Anderson (11.3) and Luke Advalovic (10.0)lead the Tigers in scoring. Anderson also is the team's top rebounder at 6.7 per game.
• Pacific forces 13.6 turnovers per game and averaged 6.5 steals per outing.
• Head coach Leonard Perry was promoted from Associate to Head Coach this summer after Damon Stoudamire accepted a position on the Boston Celtics coaching staff.
 
COACHING CONTINUITY
• In addition to the three Eastern Washington players that transferred to Portland with Coach Legans, three staff members also made the move. Assistant coaches Bobby Suarez and T.J. Lipold, as well as video coordinator Thomas Moore remained with Legans during his transition to the Rose City.
• Legans' staff is one of the youngest in the nation as all three assistant coaches are 33 or younger.
 
EXPERIENCED 'YOUTH'
• Portland's roster features just one upperclassman in terms of eligibility remaining: graduate transfer Jack Perry, who suffered a season ending injury vs. Portland State on Nov. 23.
• Portland's six other transfers all have three years of eligibility remaining including UNLV graduate transfer Moses Wood. The 6-8 forward began his career at Tulane and transferred to the Runnin' Rebels after a coaching change. He redshirted one of his two years at UNLV, which also had a coaching change this offseason, so Wood joins the Pilots with three years left to play.
• Chris Austin, Mike Meadows and Kristian Sjolund also spent three years at their previous schools, but each utilized redshirt seasons and got an extra year due to COVID.
 
GAMES IN BUNCHES
• Portland played nine games in the first 19 days of the season which began on Nov. 9 at Arizona State.
• The Pilots then took a 10-day break after hosting VMI on Dec. 3 for Finals Week on campus.
• After the team's run of five games in ten days ending at UC Davis on Dec. 22, the team was off for 22 more days due to the Holiday Break and the first three games of the league season being postponed due to COVID issues.
• The 41 days between home games (Dec. 22 - Jan. 27) matches the third largest gap this season among all teams in the nation (Cal Poly 59 days, Manhattan 42, Delaware 41).
 
WCC IN STRONG POSITION FOR MULTIPLE NCAA BIDS
• Four WCC teams are ranked in the Top 53 of the latest NCAA Net Rankings: No. 1 Gonzaga, No. 21 Saint Mary's, No. 27 San Francisco and No. 53 BYU.
• KenPom.com has those four teams all in the top 52, while ESPN's Joe Lunardi projects the WCC to have three NCAA Tournament representatives, with BYU one of the first teams out.
 
PILOTS TO CO-HOST & COMPETE IN PHIL KNIGHT INVITATIONAL NEXT YEAR
• Portland will co-host and participate in one of college basketball's biggest events when the Phil Knight Invitational (PKI) and Phil Knight Legacy come to the Rose City over the 2022 Thanksgiving weekend. Born out of the success of the PK80 events five years ago, the weekend will feature 24 total teams competing in four different brackets.
• Portland will be in the PKI bracket along with Alabama, Iowa State, Michigan State, North Carolina, Oregon, UConn and Villanova.
• The Chiles Center at University of Portland, Rose Quarter's Moda Center and Veterans Memorial Coliseum will host the games with the ESPN family of networks airing all games.

SCHEDULE SHUFFLE
• Portland's rescheduled game against Santa Clara set for Monday, Feb. 14 was called a non-contest by the WCC office and was not be played.
• The team's home game versus BYU which was postponed has also been called a non-contest and will not be rescheduled.
• Portland moved its home game against San Francisco from Jan. 21 to Saturday, Feb. 5. The Pilots were previously scheduled to play at USF on that night, but the Dons agreed to move that game to Tuesday, Feb. 8 in San Francisco.