Utah

Is it too soon move on and talk about our game against Utah tomorrow (Monday) night? I don’t know, you decide.

Utah is 1-8 in D-1 play and is ranked #309 in the nation, and last in the PAC-12. Their first D-1 win came Friday at home against #304 Idaho State. Everything Utah does on offense goes through 5-11 guard Josh Watkins. He leads the team in shooting, scoring, free throws, assists, steals, and turnovers, (but is only 3rd in rebounds).

The Pilots have dropped 17 spots to #207 after the loss to Montana and are now 2-8 in D-1 play. We still boast the 4th strongest schedule in the country, but the Montana loss was our first this year to a team we were supposed to beat. We are still actually favored to win the Utah game by as many as four points with a 65% probability.

Our only common opponent is Boise St. Both games were in Boise, Montana lost 80-59, and UP lost 92-70, so there’s not much to be learned there.

I’m concerned that Utah is just finding its game, and we again have to go on the road just two days after a blow-out loss at home.

Our guys looked weary against Montana. Can they bounce back? Will they? You decide!

I was hoping Montana would be the start of some momentum for the Pilots, take that game, beat Utah, who knows against Nevada and then have some condidence against Gonzaga. Now its back to square one, a must win against Utah.
We havent fared well against teams that have a strong point guard. Utah's is 6'0 and 200# and the bottom line is we need to step up the defense. Just got done watching the Montana game on video and it is amazing how many open 3's we give up. I mean not even contested. We made it too easy from behind the arc.
My prediction is that Utah is our "get well" game. The young lads come out to play and are competitive the entire game. Final score- Portland 73 Utah 68.
PS Please Lord, let Nem and Tanner find the bottom of the basket. Thank you.

Nem has just disappeared lately... we need him to step up and be a Senior leader, for sure. Tanner also needs to start hitting, to take the defensive pressure off Nem...

I really hope we can get it turned around. And soon.

Anyone watching the Utah game right now? They just had a "Show for Dough" segment where they give $100 to a student who's been at the game from the beginning and has shown spirit. We've tried to incentivize students. Perhaps we just need to straight-up bribe them.

Also, the announcer says Nem's last name with a Russian accent!

16 turnovers and 27 fouls.

Well, that was bad. Really bad. When you dig a hole like that on the road... ugh.

I guess we should be glad we made a game of it... but come on, Utah is terrible. We were even worse.

Looks like we had a chance to win at the end, so that's a nice change. And Nem finally made some shots.

Oh well. It's only a game and it's not like I expected anything out of tonight, or out of this season really. I've been through worse.

Have to play better defense. It was nice to see a strong comeback and second half, shows me they arent ready to quit. I think its important to remember our strength of schedule. I am going to hold reservation until we start conference, for some reason I think we will be a competitive team more often and will get some wins.

oldtimer wrote: I am going to hold reservation until we start conference, for some reason I think we will be a competitive team more often and will get some wins.

Agreed; our WCC win streak starts at the Chiles Center on January 5 against Santa Clara, and continues on January 7 against Pepperdine.

Remember, no students until January 19 against San Diego.

2 and a half minutes before either team got on the board. 7 minutes before our first basket

I knew this year was going to be bad, but we haven't beat a Division 1 team after the first 2 games which actually surprised me at the time. I figured we'd be 1-2 or 2-1 if we were lucky after the first tourney. I figured we'd have maybe 4-5 wins by now and moreso 5 than 4.

Hopefully we get rested up and are ready for conference. I know I have seen some improved play since early in the season by certain players, hopefully it starts to pay off as a team.

It seems to me that we're really missing Mr. Barker right now. And I agree that our defense is definitely lacking.