Portland just gets by Idaho

Idaho was on the road and still came mighty close but eventually fell to an underrated Portland squad.

Raivio leads Portland Pilots to win over Idaho
Ian Ruder
The Oregonian
December 6, 2008

The Portland Pilots passed their last exam before finals week by eking out a 68-65 win over the visiting Idaho Vandals on Saturday. Coach Eric Reveno had to pause when asked how he'd grade the team's test.

"It depends if I'm a tough grader or I'm concerned about the bottom line," he said. "It's like they got the answer right, but if I check their work, I'm like, wait a second that's not how you do it, but the answer is right so we'll take it and just move on."

Nik Raivio scored 21 points, none more critical than a contested layup under the basket that broke a 64-64 tie with 56 seconds left and gave Portland (5-2) a lead it would not relinquish.

As a professor, Reveno couldn't have been happy that his team allowed the Vandals to shoot 57.1 percent from the field, a season-high for a Portland opponent, or that his squad shot 38.2 percent, but he probably took solace that his team found enough turnovers (20) and offensive rebounds (15) to compensate...

Go here for the remainder.