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Hunter Adam drives to the basket in a road game at Hawaii.
Diego Rivera

Men's Basketball

Men’s Hoops Hosts East Texas A&M Friday Night

The Portland men's basketball team returns to the Chiles Center to host the East Texas A&M Lions on Friday night. The Lions (2-1) are receiving votes in this week's Associated Press Top 25 after posting road wins over Oklahoma and Rice to open the season.
 
PORTLAND PILOTS (3-1, 0-0 WCC) vs. EAST TEXAS A&M LIONS (2-1, 0-0 SLC)
Date: Friday, Nov. 13, 2026
Time: 7:00 PM
Place: Portland, Ore.
Facility: Chiles Center
Live Coverage Links: ESPN+ | Radio | Stats
Tickets: PortlandPilots.com/Tickets 

THIS WEEK
• The Pilots host East Texas A&M on Friday night, the first home game against a Division I opponent this season.
• All Portland home games will be aired live on ESPN+ with Bryan Sleik and Jennifer Mountain on the call.
• Radio for all Portland home games this season – and select road games – will be streamed on PortlandPilots.com with Jason Swygard and Xavier Hallinan calling the action. Pre-game coverage begins 10 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.

LAST WEEK
• After opening the season with a 133-89 win over Willamette, the Pilots went 2-1 at the Outrigger Rainbow Classic hosted by Hawaii. Portland lost the opener to UT Arlington (89-85) before bouncing back with wins over Bethesda (130-56) and Hawaii (73-66).
• James O'Donnell was named the Tournament MVP and joined on the All-Tournament team by Jaxon Olvera.
• O'Donnell averaged 19.7 points and 11.7 rebounds over the three games. Including a 29-point, 20-rebound effort against Bethesda.
• Portland trailed UT Arlington 14-0 before taking the lead late in regulation, but the Pilots couldn't overcome 21 turnovers and 16-for-27 shooting from the foul line. RJ Nance led the way with 25 points in the loss.
• Portland overwhelmed Bethesda and shot 60 percent overall as six Pilots reached double figures.
• Portland led most of the game against the host Rainbow Warriors and secured the win with defense late. The Pilots held Hawaii scoreless for more than nine minutes midway through the second half to overcome some offensive struggles and pull away down the stretch. O'Donnell led the way with 18 points and nine rebounds.

ABOUT THE PILOTS
• Through four games, the Pilots rank No. 3 nationally in FG percentage (59.3), No. 4 in scoring (105.3), No. 6 in rebounding margin (+20.0) and No. 9 in bench points (49.3).
• Portland also leads the WCC in free throws made (23.3) and attempted (31.8).
• O'Donnell is the reigning WCC Player of the Week and leads the league in both scoring (19.3) and rebounding (11.3). He is No. 8 nationally in rebounds per game.
• O'Donnell's 20 rebounds versus Bethesda was the first 20-rebound game by a Pilot since 1979 and is the second highest by a player this season nationally (21 by Pittsburgh's Baye Ndongo vs. Buffalo).
• Seven Pilots are currently averaging double figures.
• Portland's lowest team FG percentage through four games was 51.2 percent against Hawaii.
• The 133 points against Willamette to open the year broke the previous Pilot single game record of 122 (122-78 over Willamette on Nov. 11, 2021). The 35 assists also broke the previous mark of 34 set versus LMU on March 5, 1988.
• 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.

FINDING THE RANGE
• After struggling to find consistent perimeter shooting last season (.302), the Pilots have a number of capable shooters this year.
• Riley Parker, who missed all but one game last year due to injury, is 11-for-21 from deep. Parker shot 40 percent from three-point range during the 2024-25 season at St. Francis.
• Hunter Adam is 12-for-26 from beyond the arc and shot a combined 40 percent from three in his last two years at Davidson.
• Seven other Pilots have drilled at least one triple in the first four games as the team is a combined 36-for-87 (.414)

THE RETURNERS
• Portland returns six players from last year's team including junior F James O'Donnell (10.0 ppg, 4.4 rpg in 2025-26), 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.

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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