Portland v. Kentucky

Rob's Jacket wrote:I'm mildly curious to see if Marcus Camby shows up tonight to see his old college coach.

Camby was there, as was Patty Mills.

I don't think the final result will shock anyone. In order for us to compete with the length, athleticism and quickness of a team like UK our guys are gonna have to shoot the lights out. We were missing way too many open jumpers/layins when we got them.

Random observations:

- Haha they brought out the arctic grade heavy blanket defense for Jared, I don't know if he will see a team capable of doing that the rest of the year...

- Terrance Jones is damn good but does NOT like being fouled. Wow does he lose his mind when you do it (not to mention his foul shooting, well lets say "We love free throws" probably isn't his catch phrase...) It will be interesting how his mental make up comes into play as the games get tougher for the Wildcats...

- Not a big fan of the new shorts, I like the simplicity of the jerseys, but the design on the shorts, I think they can do better...

- Tim Douglas was a big loose with the ball, but he was facing some huge defending guards. He showed some moments of brilliance for sure driving to the hoop toward the end of the half, we have some serious talent on our hands there.

- I love Nem's confidence, but he NEEDS to hit those open looks when people are doubling Jared.

It was the first time I've been able to see these guys play, and each player showed a moment or 2 of why Rev considers them such a "neat" team. It will be fun to watch this squad come together. If there's one thing we can take from this game it's thank goodness we won't see another team quite like UK the whole year.

VillaGorilla wrote:

Rob's Jacket wrote:I'm mildly curious to see if Marcus Camby shows up tonight to see his old college coach.

Camby was there, as was Patty Mills.

Terry Porter, Garrett, Big Bill, three Teletubbies, purple bodysuit dude, and a guy with a sign that said, "Hey Terrence, Coach Romar says hi." were there as well.

What, nobody recognizes Wesley Matthews?

PurplePrideTrumpet wrote:

VillaGorilla wrote:

Rob's Jacket wrote:I'm mildly curious to see if Marcus Camby shows up tonight to see his old college coach.

Camby was there, as was Patty Mills.

Terry Porter, Garrett, Big Bill, three Teletubbies, purple bodysuit dude, and a guy with a sign that said, "Hey Terrence, Coach Romar says hi." were there as well.

Terry Porter, Adam Quick, Karl Aaker, Julian Ramirez.

All the luminaries.

Purplegeezer wrote:

PurplePrideTrumpet wrote:

VillaGorilla wrote:

Rob's Jacket wrote:I'm mildly curious to see if Marcus Camby shows up tonight to see his old college coach.

Camby was there, as was Patty Mills.

Terry Porter, Garrett, Big Bill, three Teletubbies, purple bodysuit dude, and a guy with a sign that said, "Hey Terrence, Coach Romar says hi." were there as well.

Terry Porter, Adam Quick, Karl Aaker, Julian Ramirez.

All the luminaries.

Sounds like it was a USC football game.

I won't really offer too much, but holy cow, we were star struck. Maybe everyone in the arena was star struck. I was disappointed in that. We're good enough to play with anyone (I understand that they are better than us), so there is no reason to be star struck and timid. Oh well.

I know I said it before in a previous post, but, I personally think it's better for the program to schedule a team like Butler or Sienna or an established mid-major instead of a team like Kentucky at this point in our development. Next year, we'll have one player on our squad who could probably make the team at Kentucky in Kevin Bailey. But, we're still mostly a heady high basketball IQ team, not, a team that wins mostly from its athleticism.

I just hope that the guys bounce back quickly so that the RPI boost that we get from putting a big boy onto the schedule is worth it....

Butler and Siena don't bring in nearly the exposure or $$$ unless the game happens to occur in late March or early April...

Agreed with DTR. Scheduling games like Kentucky bring in $$$, media attention, offer experience to the team/coaches and are a HUGE recruiting tool. If we are going to grow as a program, we need games like this.

PilotNut wrote:Agreed with DTR. Scheduling games like Kentucky bring in $$$, media attention, offer experience to the team/coaches and are a HUGE recruiting tool. If we are going to grow as a program, we need games like this.

It's good money. But what about putting a quality win over a quality opponent onto the resume before Spring? Can't losing by 30 points and only scoring 48 points bring negative media attention and have adverse effects on recruiting as well? Being a Pilots fan you have to try to be optimistic and see the glass half full, and at the same time it's good to take a step back and be a realist too. We got completely schooled in that game.

I guess the bigger question for me is: What's the priority: $ for the program or making the tournament? I think of $ as a byproduct of having success, and we need to have more success first.

I agree that there is some negative publicity when losing by that margin... but I think that is outweighed by all the positive. How many times did we get mentioned & discussed on national TV this week (i.e. ESPN) compared to LMU, SCU, etc.?

We have plenty of opportunities for quality wins over quality opponents on the schedule, too... Utah, St. Louis, UW, WSU, SMC twice, Gonzaga twice...

Coach Rev can tell a potential recruit that they have opportunities like playing Kentucky, playing at the Rose Garden, another ESPN/nationally televised game... in the WCC, only GU, SMC and UP can make this selling point...

onetouchfutbol wrote: What's the priority: $ for the program or making the tournament? I think of $ as a byproduct of having success, and we need to have more success first.

This isn't the season for us to be worried about RPI hits and whatnot, besides it isn't nearly as crucial as it is in non revenue sports anyway. We have a pretty young team, with the youth being in some very key positions... Worrying about what it takes to get an at large berth this year would just be unrealistic. I'd rather schedule difficult teams that provide revenue potential that can be used as building blocks for future years. Butler and Siena are going to get zero coverage at all outside of Indianapolis or the greater Albany NY area, you play a big team like Kentucky, thats national exposure, something invaluable for a small, developing program like UPs. That gets you in recruits living rooms and builds for the future, not necessarily just THIS post season. And the nice little purse that comes along with it just goes into the Athletics budget funding future trips to places like Butler or Siena, because at this point there is zero realistic chance of them traveling out this way unless they are playing the Zags

DaTruRochin wrote:

onetouchfutbol wrote: What's the priority: $ for the program or making the tournament? I think of $ as a byproduct of having success, and we need to have more success first.

This isn't the season for us to be worried about RPI hits and whatnot, besides it isn't nearly as crucial as it is in non revenue sports anyway. We have a pretty young team, with the youth being in some very key positions... Worrying about what it takes to get an at large berth this year would just be unrealistic. I'd rather schedule difficult teams that provide revenue potential that can be used as building blocks for future years. Butler and Siena are going to get zero coverage at all outside of Indianapolis or the greater Albany NY area, you play a big team like Kentucky, thats national exposure, something invaluable for a small, developing program like UPs. That gets you in recruits living rooms and builds for the future, not necessarily just THIS post season. And the nice little purse that comes along with it just goes into the Athletics budget funding future trips to places like Butler or Siena, because at this point there is zero realistic chance of them traveling out this way unless they are playing the Zags

People. You need to realize college sports runs on money. I don't always like it but it's true. If a school like Kentucky wants to get one of their kids a game in his hometown and is offering a nice paycheck, I say take it. Every mid-major schedules guarantee games like this. It's just a question of how often you do it, and this program may not have to do it quite as often as some of the others out there.

You mean it doesn't just run on the trill of victory and agony of defeat? My world view is now crushed....

I was pretty pleased with our rebounding, but disappointed in how nervous we appeared to be at the beginning of the game. We missed something like 3 layups out of the gate.

Yeah, missed layins and several OPEN 3s would have gone a long way toward making the game a little more competitive...

DaTruRochin wrote:You mean it doesn't just run on the trill of victory and agony of defeat? My world view is now crushed....

Hmmm...the trill of victory. Maybe google can help me to figure this out:

In the fictional Star Trek universe, the Trill are a species of symbiotic lifeforms native to the Alpha Quadrant. Their home world is also Trill. Trill is a very sparsely populated planet with only a few million inhabitants. Its oceans are predominantly purple (see DS9).

The Pilots are also purple; it's all clear now.

dholcombe wrote:I was pretty pleased with our rebounding, but disappointed in how nervous we appeared to be at the beginning of the game. We missed something like 3 layups out of the gate.

Maybe we should play a game or more a year in the Rose Garden, so that when we go there we aren't so intimidated. I think that GU and/or BYU would draw enough fans to consider it. Or perhaps one of our local Pac-12 teams would play us again at the RG instead if the EACC. Of course, I was not excited about the Rose Garden pricing on concessions.

up7587 wrote:

dholcombe wrote:I was pretty pleased with our rebounding, but disappointed in how nervous we appeared to be at the beginning of the game. We missed something like 3 layups out of the gate.

Maybe we should play a game or more a year in the Rose Garden, so that when we go there we aren't so intimidated. I think that GU and/or BYU would draw enough fans to consider it. Or perhaps one of our local Pac-12 teams would play us again at the RG instead if the EACC. Of course, I was not excited about the Rose Garden pricing on concessions.

The Pac-12 teams haven't seemed to even manage to fill the Chiles Center in recent years. How many BYU will draw is a big ?, but we'll find out next year. I think the best bet is GU. Chiles is consistently sold out every year for that game and they raised the prices to $30/$20 at Chiles this year. The problem is we might end up with more Zag fans at the Rose Garden and I don't want that. Also, prices for the good seats would need to be higher at the Rose Garden in order to make the same profit which would likely cause some people not to go, although on the other hand the cheapest tickets for the Kentucky game were $12 instead of the $20 for the cheapest seats at Chiles for Gonzaga. I got my tickets for the Gonzaga game pretty late last year so I can't imagine there is that much more demand out there. I suspect we might get an extra thousand people which would only be 6000 and that is too low to make economic sense.

I think it would be worth trying one year and in the past I have wondered about why we haven't tried scheduling the Gonzaga game there once already.

Gonzaga at the Rose Garden... , although because of all their fair weather fans they would have a larger contigent...it would be nice to stick it to them at the Rose Garden with big Red,Tanner, Eric,and all the other new guys with another years experience with of course out highly touted Cali freshman leading the way to VICTORY...they will be vunerable next year without Gray, Sacre, or Harris....Has that Kelly Olynek regressed from last year??? or what??? That kid needed to stay in Spokane an hit the weights(he's getting pushed around all over the floor) & workout with former Zags and Daniels not the Canadian national team bench ....he played himself out of about 10 mins a game...man that new 20yr german and Dower have made him more expendible they have has pushed him further down the bench....lol. I was worried about his potential after his recruitment but it looks like big red will be able to challenge him one on one , just like he stated he wanted to do being a big ol Canadian boy himself...


MesaPilot1

playing gonzaga in the RG would not be a wise move. we have a much better chance of beating them at chiles and seems that we have made consistent progress the past several years in reducing the number of zag fans.

all in all, 4-1 start is fantastic. Im excited about the future.

anyone know if nicolas recently hurt his knee or if the knee brace is more of a preventative measure?

A conference game at the RG does not make $ense... the revenue for conference games is shared/pooled, so we would not see the same financial reward...

How about a pre season game with an NAIA team in the Coliseum?