PORTLAND, Ore. – The Portland men's basketball team opens the regular season tonight against the Willamette Bearcats with a 5 p.m. tip-off. It is the first game of a doubleheader with the women's team, who also hosts the Bearcats at 7:30 p.m. One ticket buys entry into both games. See below for game details.
 
GAME INFORMATION
Opponent: Willamette Bearcats (0-0, 0-0 NWC)
Day: Monday
Date: Nov. 2, 2026
Time: 5:00 PM
Place: Portland, Ore.
Facility: Chiles Center
Live Coverage Links: ESPN+ | Radio | Stats
Tickets: PortlandPilots.com/Tickets 

THIS WEEK
• The Pilots open the 2026-27 regular season against the Division III Willamette University Bearcats of the Northwest Conference on Monday.
• Portland will then head to Hawaii to participate in the Rainbow Classic Nov. 6-9. The Pilots will face UT Arlington on Friday at 6:30 p.m. (PT), Bethesda on Sunday at 4:30 p.m. and then the hosts on Monday at 9 p.m.
 
GAME COVERAGE
• All Portland home games will be aired live on ESPN+ with Bryan Sleik and Jennifer Mountain on the call.
• Radio for all Portland men's and women's basketball home games – and select road games – will be streamed on PortlandPilots.com with Jason Swygard calling the action. Pre-game coverage begins 15 minutes prior to tip-off and ends with a 15-minute post-game show.
• Live coverage links for Portland games can be found at PortlandPilots.com.
• Follow @PortlandMBB on X and Instagram for the latest team content.

ABOUT THE PILOTS
• Portland was picked ninth in the West Coast Conference Preseason Coaches' Poll.
• Head Coach Shantay Legans is back for his sixth season on The Bluff.
• The Pilots finished last season 15-19 overall and 6-12 in WCC play. Despite a surge of injuries that limited the team to nine scholarship players late in league play, the team still shocked No. 6 Gonzaga and won two games at the WCC Tournament.
• Portland's 87-80 upset of Gonzaga was the highest ranked win in program history (AP Poll) and the first against a Top 10 team since 1968.

THE RETURNERS
• Portland returns six players from last year's team including junior F James O'Donnell (10.0 ppg, 4.4 rpg), sophomore F Timo George (12.5 ppg, 4.9 rpg) and sophomore G Dante Censori-Hercules (3.2 ppg, 3.5 rpg). George played 15 games before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury.
• Fifth-year G Riley Parker and redshirt sophomore G Carlin Briggs missed last season due to injury, but are back, as well as walk-on junior G Marchelo Moreira.
• Prior to Portland, Parker was a starter and team captain for St. Francis, which won the Northeast Conference Tournament to reach the 2025 NCAA Tournament. He started all 34 games averaging 13.4 points while shooting 48 percent from the field, 40 percent from three-point range and 85 percent at the foul line.

THE NEWCOMERS
• Portland hit the transfer portal and brought in some established upper classmen in the offseason.
• Senior G Hunter Adam played three years at Davidson where he appeared in 98 games. The last two seasons he shot 51 percent from the field and was 53-for-134 (.395) from three-point range.
• Junior G Jaxon Olvera has familiarity with UP and the WCC after starting his career at Pepperdine. He averaged 5.9 points with the Waves before spending last season at Louisiana where he finished at 13.7 points and 4.5 rebounds per game.
• Senior G Kaia Isaac played at Tarleton State last season where he started 31 games and averaged 5.6 points and collected 38 steals.
• Junior G RJ Nance Jr. played his freshman year at UTRGV before leading New Mexico JC to junior college nationals last season. He averaged 14.1 points and finished with at least 23 points in four of his last five games as he led the team to the Round of 16 at the NJCAA DI Men's Basketball Championships.
• Sophomore F Vito Perkovic came from East Carolina where he averaged 2.3 points and 1.5 rebounds in limited minutes as a true freshman.
• Junior F Omer Sukur put up 9.2 points and 11.3 rebounds per game at Canada College.
• Portland also added three true freshmen in F Henry Sewell (Melbourne, Australia), G Austin Foxwell (Melbourne, Australia) and G Dylan Moran (Los Angeles, Calif.). Foxwell is the younger brother of Joel Foxwell, who earned All-WCC First Team recognition for the Pilots last season before transferring to Arizona State.

INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE
• Portland continues to have success with international recruiting and this year's roster features 11 total international players and is made up of players from seven different countries (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Croatia, UAE and the Netherlands).
• That is third most in the nation behind UT Martin (14) and St. Johns (12).
• The Australian pipeline continues to flow with five Pilots hailing from Down Under: Riley Parker, James O'Donnell, Carlin Briggs, Henry Sewell and Austin Foxwell.
• Throughout his six-year tenure with the Pilots, Legans has had 11 different Aussies on the roster and 26 total international players from 14 different countries.

ABOUT WILLAMETTE
• The Bearcats are ranked No. 25 in the D3hoops.com Preseason Top 25 and feature preseason All-American Tanner Overby.
• Overby averaged 24.6 points per game last year.
• The Bearcats went 16-11 overall last season and reached the Northwest Conference title game.
• Head Coach Michael Lenahan is in his fourth year at the helm.

WE'RE RIVERBOAT PILOTS, NOT AIRPLANE PILOTS!
• Though a 1935 student contest resulted in the nickname "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.
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