Pilots flying high
Gonzaga visits the red-hot Portland Pilots, winners of six straight since falling to the Bulldogs 67-50 on Jan. 10th, at the Chiles Center on Thursday.
I checked in Monday morning with Portland coach Eric Reveno, who talked about his team's emergence in the WCC race for an article that will run in Tuesday's S-R. The unedited version is below.
By
Staff writer
That’s what happens when a team picked to finish sixth in West Coast Conference preseason polls finds itself on a six-game winning streak entering perhaps the biggest regular-season home game in school history. No. 18 Gonzaga (16-4, 7-0 WCC) visits the second-place Pilots (15-7, 6-1) Thursday at 8 p.m.
“It’s all good stuff,” said Reveno, the third-year head coach who was previously an assistant at Stanford. “It sort of comes with the territory. I want to keep it going. I’m hoping they still want to talk to me in two weeks.”
“The fact that we put ourselves in this position so that it’s a relevant game in the conference standings is huge,” Reveno said. “If we wake up the next day 6-2, we still have a lot of things and goals that we can reach. If we wake up 7-1 it will be a signal – I’m not going to say it’s nothing. Either way, we still have a lot of basketball in front of us.”
So how did the Pilots get to this point? Reveno said the emergence isn’t quite as dramatic as it appears to those inside the program because he thought last year’s nine-win team should have won 3-4 more games.
Reveno said the team’s off-season work – individual skills improvement and conditioning strides – was exemplary. After going against the likes of Gonzaga’s Josh Heytvelt, BYU’s Trent Plaisted and
“I really think the No. 1 thing has been the focus and determination of the players,” said Reveno, who also noted the importance of new point guard T.J. Campbell. “Last summer was one of the best off seasons of any team I’ve worked with and the strength, conditioning and development of belief and toughness that came with that were really significant.”
Gonzaga defeated the Pilots 67-50 in
“I kind of called them as one of the teams that could fight their way into the upper echelon,” Bulldogs coach Mark Few said. “I felt they were experienced and had a group of highly skilled guys and some tough, physical inside players to go with it. It’s a great mix and Eric has done a great job developing those guys.”
Pilots’ fans stormed the court after the Saint Mary’s win. It was a satisfying victory for several older Pilots, who remembered losing to the Gaels by 40 in
“People don’t quite know what to make of it,” said Reveno, who doesn’t have a senior on his roster. “We’re not a well-oiled winning machine by any stretch, so it’s new to us. What I’m trying to focus our players on are the things that are allowing it to happen – the fundamentals, etc. – aren’t new to us.”