By David Thompson
What a difference a year can make. In last year's first exhibition game, the University of Portland's men's basketball team suffered a demoralizing 66-64 loss to Division II Western Oregon. In Thursday's exhibition game, the Pilots made sure that was not going to happen again by defeating Linfield College 94-36.
The Pilots were led by Junior Robin Smeulders who scored 21 points. The Pilots were extremely efficient by shooting 54 percent from the floor. The Pilots' hot hands, combined with stellar defense held Linfield to 19 percent shooting from the field, forced 29 turnovers and allowed the Pilots to run away with the game.
After falling behind 0-2 in the first minute, the Pilots responded by scoring 14 unanswered points, capped by two of sophomore Jared Stohl's six three-point shots. From there, the Pilots outscored the Wildcats 37-13 to end the half.
While Portland dominated in the opening exhibition, some weaknesses were exposed. The Pilots committed 21 turnovers against the Division III school. The Pilots did not convert effectively on free-throw attempts either, shooting only 58 percent from the charity stripe.
"In the things to improve upon category, we turned the ball over too much and let them get to many offensive boards in the secone half," said Head Coach Eric Reveno. "Despite the score, Linfield did a nice job of executing and making us make adjustments."
Depth seems to be a strength that the Pilots have this season, as ten of the 12 players scored and four reached double digits. The Pilots' bench added 35 points. Reveno atributes the success to teamwork and experience.
"In addition to having some key additions to the roster, our returning players are more experienced and have made a lot of improvement," Reveno said.
Those key additions that Reveno is talking about are junior guard TJ Campbell (10 points and six assists in 23 minutes), Eric Waterford (four points and a steal in 11 minutes) and Nemanja Mitrovic (two points and zero turnovers in 10 minutes).
"We need to keep working hard to improve in a bunch of different areas and the exhibition game is just a good chance to take a look at some things and see where we are at," Reveno said.
There was not a statistical category that the Pilots failed to control.
They outscored the Wildcats in the paint by a margin of 44-12, they took advantage of turnovers by scoring 40 points off of turnovers compared to Linfield's 15 and the Pilots scored 27 second-chance points to Linfield's three.
As exciting as the performance was, how healthy the Pilots looked was the most encouraging aspect.
Sophomore Luke Sikma had been recovering from a knee injury for the past few weeks and played well in his time on the floor.
"It was nice to see Luke Sikma play pretty well after coming back from his long layoff with his knee injury," Reveno said. Sophomore guard BJ Porter, who sat out most of last year due to injury, played sparingly due to injury, but his contribution will be valuable to the Pilots this season.
One element of the Pilots' game that fans appreciated was the three-point shooting. The Pilots converted on 62 percent of their shots from three-point range.
Considering the Pilots shot just under 33 percent shots this is a great improvement. "We have the perimeter shooters to take advantage of what the defensive gives you. If we are going to get open threes then we will shoot them," said Reveno.
The Pilots, who are without a senior on the squad, look to open their season against the University of Washington. Tip-off is at 8 p.m. on Saturday at the Chiles Center.There will be a special tribute to the late Dr. Philip Cansler, who passed away this past summer. A complimentary nacho bar will be served at the Pepsi Pre-game inside the student entrance starting at 7:30 p.m.
