University of Portland Preview

Portland comes out of the West Coast Conference (WCC) alongside the likes of Loyola Marymount, St. Mary's, and Gonzaga. They are currently 7-2 on the year. Their two losses are a 31 point loss to Kentucky (79-48) and a 16 point loss to WSU (74-68). They are coming off a 58-54 win over Montana on the road. They are not a great offensive team as can be seen by their losses to upper tier opponents in UK and WSU. Against teams ranked 154 or lower they are winning by 13+ points. They average 69.8 points per game, UW is averaging 95.7 after Saturday's game. Their offense only averages 70 points a game due to good performances against weak basketball programs. Kenpom currently has Portland ranked at 92, as a comparison Texas Tech was 84. Their one plus is their 3 point shooting. UW is currently number 2 in the nation in 3 point percentage at 46.3% while Portland comes in at number 4 (45.4%). Portland also shoots free throws fairly well at 75.6%, good for 30th in the nation.

Portland's leading scorer is 6-2 guard Jared Stohl at 15.0 points per game. Two other starters are averaging double digit scoring per game. Luke Sikma is scoring 12.1 ppg and 11.7 rebounds per game, and is in my opinion their best player. Nemanja Mitrovic drops in 11.1 ppg.

Jared Stohl is shooting 52.5% from range on 31 for 59 from range. Stohl has only missed 1 free throw out of his 27 attempts thus far this season. Nemanja is also efficient from range making 20 shots on 42 attempts (47.6%). Sikma is an absolute beast on the boards, picking up rebounding totals of 12, 12, 13, 18, and 19, which came against FAU. Luke is a 6-8 235 lb forward. Expect Gant/Holiday to pick up the assignment. If they do as good of a job on Sikma as they did on Singletary we will be in good hands.

Portland has one of the more balanced team in terms of minutes played that the UW has faced in a while. The 5 starters average 24+ minutes with 2 players averaging 30 minutes a piece. 4 bench players play 10+ minutes a game. The Portland bench brings in about 17 points per game (24.2%). UW's bench is averaging 35 ppg (36.5%).

Portland runs a very slow offense with an adjusted tempo of 65.6, while UW is running one of the faster offenses at 75.0 (6th in the nation). It'll be key for UW to control the tempo of the game and not let Portland run the reins.

Portland upset the Dawgs in 2008 80-74. UW avenged the loss last season against a similarly skilled Portland team 89-54. Seeing as the Pilots are not any better or worse than last year and UW is much better than last year, this should be another 100+ point performance and 30+ point blowout.

Portland has some good size; 2 players at 6-10, 1 at 6-9, and 2 at 6-8.

Keys to the Game


Rebounding


Sikma is a rebounding expert. With a near 12 rpg average and two games just under 20 boards, he is a threat to contend with. He had a similar build to Darnell Gant, but a bit more muscle. Darnell will need to be at his best to contain Sikma, look for Holiday to possibly pick up the assignment as well as he faired very well against the much larger Singletary on Saturday. MBA and/or Aziz will also need to step up their game to help box out Sikma and their own man to get the boards we need. Letting Portland win the rebounding battle will allow them to keep the game much closer than it should be. We must limit second chance points game in and game out. We are keeping our opponents around 32 or 33 boards a game, not bad, but not great when our average is only 39 to 40. We are still lacking a dominant, consistent post rebounder. Neither MBA nor Aziz have stepped up to show they can fill this role  yet. Until then, Holiday and the rest of the squad need to continue to spread the boards around and keep the edge on our side. I'm still confident we can get 44 to 45 boards a game and hold our opponents to 30 a game. Two years later we are still missing Jon Brockman's presence down low. If MBA wants a career in the NBA he needs to step it up on the glass.

Perimeter Defense


With two skilled three ball shooters on the team, it is highly important our backcourt defense is on its A-game. Limiting the number of quality shots Stohl and Mitrovic get off will help push the game beyond the Pilots best efforts. Alongside Sikma, the trio form a deadly group who UW needs to focus on shutting down. All three could post big numbers, all three could hurt our progress. I would much rather see us shut down the two outside threats and give up a 20 point 10 rebound game to Sikma than see Stohl and Mitrovic combine for 35 or more points. I also think our backcourt defense is much stronger than our frontcourt. Gaddy will most likely be assigned 6-2 Jared Stohl, while Holiday draws the 6-5 Mitrovic. Overton stated after Saturday's game that he is about 80% right now and is still recovering from his hamstring and tailbone injuries. I'd like to see his minutes limited to get him healed up for A&M where we will need him more, but I think his presence will be important Monday against the Pilots as well.

Inside Presence


Sikma looks to be a tough challenge for MBA and Aziz, putting up big numbers on a more consistent rate than either of UW's bigs. We may see Aziz draw the start again to wear on Sikma so MBA can come in and work the post. We need to establish an inside game through the post and develop our play out from there. Getting either MBA or Aziz rolling along with driving efforts from our backcourt will let C.J., Ross, Holiday, Gant, etc. get open for outside shot attempts. If MBA plays anything like he did on Saturday (though I'd like to see more rebounds) we should be fine. He received a lot of nice transition passes that led to a majority of his points, but he had some good post moves that looked promising. Gant looks to be an X-factor in not only this game, but the season. If he can draw out some of the size from the middle and open the lanes we will be looking good.

Outside Shooting


When we start dropping three's, the game is in our bag. We have struggled so far in games where we aren't hitting the long ball. Saturday's game was our only game with less than 12 made threes in a win. To me this is an improvement as it shows less dependency on the 3 ball and an ability to work the middle. If any of our shooters, especially C.J., can get hot, we need to feed them the ball. On Saturday, it was Holiday and C.J., on Monday it could be a number of people.

Starting Line Up Predictions


Portland


Eric Waterford 6-1 180 lb G
Jared Stohl 6-2 165 lb G
Nemanja Mitrovic 6-5 200 lb G
Luke Sikma 6-8 235 lb F
Kramer Knutson 6-9 220 lb C

Washington


Isaiah Thomas 5-9 185 lb SG
Abdul Gaddy 6-3 195 lb PG
Justin Holiday 6-6 185 lb F
Darnell Gant 6-8 225 lb F
Aziz N'Diaye 7-0 260 lb C

What We Should See


Portland keeps it close for the first few minutes per usual with UW pulling away about 6 or 7 minutes into the first half. With Portland having an adjusted defensive efficiency of 99.2 and UW sitting pretty at an adjusted offensive efficiency of 117.2 we should have no problem doing what we want on offense. We continue to force 20 turnovers a game at a rate of 1 in 4 possessions resulting in a turnover for the opposition. 10 of those turnovers are steals. Against the Raiders we converted those 20 turnovers into 28 points, a huge and important number. We need to continue to convert turnovers into points. Another great stat is the over 40% offensive rebounding rate, meaning 4 out of every 10 missed shots on offensive is picked up by our team for second chance opportunities. Defensively, we are picking up over 65% of the boards, another solid number. Sikma will most likely snatch 9 boards or more with Holiday and Ross grabbing a majority for us. Aziz may face another zone defense from the Pilots. If this is the case we will most likely need to rely on MBA to do more work in the post. If we find ourselves in a man to man situation, Aziz could have a great day against a smaller post in 6-9 220 lb Kramer Knutson. 6-10 270 lb Jasonn Hannibal is only averaging 7 minutes a game so don't expect UW to be outsized much, if at all, this game.

Portland is going to be simply outclassed like every opponent that has visited Hec Ed thus far. Only Eastern Washington escaped from the 100 point line due to kindness from Romar (finished with 98 and had the ball with 33 seconds on the clock). We have shown we can play with the best, we need to continue to prove this and show we can finish by demolishing a lesser opponent once again. It can't be fun to be on the other end of a 30 point loss, but we need to keep our rhythm and flow regardless of who we are playing. Upsets occur when big teams play to the level of their competition, rather than the level they are capable of. Thus far we are not sinking to that level, though arguably we allowed ourselves to sink a bit against UK and MSU. At home are a very confident team and securing this win will be great for our momentum and moral going into a tough road match against Texas A&M.

I'm giving Aziz the start due to MBA's success off the bench and Aziz's ability to pick up boards. His size should help control the post and limit not only Knutson's touches, but Sikma's as well.

Scott Suggs is still recovering from a strained MCL and will likely play limited minutes against Portland. I'm impressed by what I saw from him in an injured state. I still stand by what I said when I believe the order off the bench should be Wilcox, then Ross, then Suggs.

Isaiah will likely be able to muscle his way inside. Gaddy should be able to pass around the defense and our wings should put up strong offensive performances.

This could get ugly fast and end up much rougher on the Pilots than the Raiders.

Final Score Prediction


UW-104 Portland-64


So far we have been giving up points near the opposition average, hence the Portland score. Our ppg average was hurt by our subpar performances in Maui, so against a faster team I would predict more points, but Portland runs a slower offense that will limit possessions. We could get up to 110 points if we can really get after the Pilot guards and force 20 to 25 turnovers. I have consistently been under predicting the UW final score so I could be off by as many as 6 to 8 points. Absolutely cannot drop this game, we need to come out guns blazing, pedal to the metal the entire way. No Mercy.

An interesting fact: Portland has scored 628 points in 9 games, UW has scored 670 in 7 games. Just throwing that out there.


Links
Dawg Pack Dirt http://freepdfhosting.com/adbbd8c12d.pdf
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/huskymensbasketballblog/2013608898_scouting_report_9.html
http://www.montlakemadness.com/game-preview-portland/