Diary Series: Michael Wolf, Asst. Coach - Portland

Happy New Year to everyone!  It's amazing what a blur November and December can be in the world of college basketball as non-conference tournaments and inter-conference games create a pretty rugged schedule.  We talk often about there being three seasons to college basketball:  The non-conference season, the conference season and the post-season.  We try to put them into their own context but the primary goal of the non-conference season for us is to get ready for West Coast Conference play.  Following a 2010-2011 season where we opened 13-3 and had 10 home games on the docket, we were required to return many of those games in ourhome-and-home series and found ourselves on the road quite a bit this fall!  With only 3 non-conference home games and three road trips of longer than five days each, the 2011-2012 Portland Pilots faced the toughest non-conference schedule in school history (currently ranked 7th nationally by KenPom.com and as high as 3rd at one point).

Combine all that with the fact that we are the 20th youngest team in the country and the quality of our development was not properly reflected in our non-conference record.  What we felt best about though was that the investments we made in our young team by playing such a challenging schedule would pay off.  Facing 23,000 screaming fans in Lexington, Kentucky was a great college basketball experience but it also is a great trial run for the 22,000 screaming Cougar fans we will face in Provo, Utah next month as BYU now joins the West Coast Conference.

The holidays are always a challenge for a college basketball team because we want to do everything we can to give our guys those special moments with their families when we can but at the same time they are often at critical times for our team.  At Christmas we finished our game at Nevada on the night of the 22nd but had to practice in preparation for the conference opener at Gonzaga on the 28th.  The guys were off until practice on the evening of the 26th and while our Northern California players drove home from Reno with their folks the majority of our guys (and coaches) got on separate planes to steal two days with family.   At Thanksgiving this year we travelled to Santa Barbara for a Tuesday game, with another contest scheduled at Kentucky that Saturday.  Instead of traveling back to Portland for 36 hours and having Thanksgiving on campus before connecting through Los Angeles to get to Kentucky, we decided to spend 2 days at the beach in Santa Monica.  Coach Reveno's ability to find creative solutions to problems that sometimes no one else sees is one of his greatest strengths as the leader of our program.  Instead of the travel ordeal and Thanksgiving back in the Pacific NW, where only 2 of our players could spend it with their family, we were able to get in 2 great days of practice, 2 workouts in the sand at Santa Monica beach and 5 of our guys were close enough to home to be able to spend Thanksgiving with them.  The rest of the team was treated to a feast at Buca di Beppo and as I said to them all, "When in your life will you ever again say you had an Italian Thanksgiving at Buca di Beppo!"

The biggest challenges we have faced as a staff so far revolved around keeping our focus on our long term goals and not letting ourselves or the team be distracted by short term losing streaks against very good teams (usually on the road!).  I'm also hoping it might have left the rest of the league underestimating The Pilots a little bit.....  After a WCC-opening defeat at Gonzaga last week, our guys rallied together with the best week of practice of the season by far!  We felt confident going into our conference home opener and that resulted in a sweep this past weekend over Santa Clara and Pepperdine.  We sit now at 2-1, headed to San Francisco and St. Mary's this week.

All-WCC Guard Nemanja Mitrovic seems to have found his stroke after finishing 5th in nation last year in 3pt FG% but struggling as the main focus of other teams' game prep through the first part of this season.  Freshmen Guard Kevin Bailey continues to grow on both ends of the floor and is now relishing his role as defensive stopper while showing flashes of explosive offense driving to the basket and knocking it down from behind the arc.  Sophomore Forward Ryan Nicholas is a relentless force on the boards and in the paint leading us in both scoring and rebounding this year as well as floor burns and bruises!  Our PG play has been steadied by the offensive punch of Sophomore Tim Douglas whose ability to take over a game with his decision making and scoring has been big for us.  While Sophomore Center Riley Barker continues to recover from knee surgery, Freshman Tomas van der Mars from the Netherlands has provided tremendous inside play as he continues to adjust to the American game (and American refs!). 

We've been really pleased with the depth our bench has provided us as Junior Guard Derrick Rodgers gives us an attacking ball-handler and lockdown defender, Freshman Guard David Carr has been our steadiest and most versatile guard, Sophomore Guard Tanner Riley is our own Vinnie Johnson-type microwave and Freshman Dorian Cason provides athleticism, enthusiasm and a great inside presence in the paint.  We've also gotten key contributions from Senior Guard Eric Waterford and Freshman Forward John Bailey in tough situations (especially because they never know when their number will be called but they are always ready).

As we move ahead in WCC play (and season #2), we are preaching that conference success is all about taking care of business at home and scrapping and fighting for everything you can get on the road.  That's usually a pretty good formula for a top half of the league finish and one of the all-important tournament "byes."  We've done our job at home so far and now we head to the Bay Area this week for USF and St. Mary's just trying to scrap and claw.....Enjoy the second season of college basketball as the Pilots push forward on the road to Las Vegas and the WCC Championships in March!