Jan. 18, 2018
Final Stats
USD vs UP Box Jan 18 
SAN DIEGO -- Despite season-highs from junior Isaiah Pineiro who notched his second double-double of the year with 26 points and 11 rebounds, the Toreros dropped a 55-49 decision to the visiting Portland Pilots. Behind most the game the Toreros battled back to take their first lead at 46-44 and held their final lead of 48-46 with just under three minutes left. From there the Pilots closed out the game with a 9-1 run.
"We didn't shoot the ball very well but we still pride ourselves on the ability to defend," said head coach Lamont Smith. "We've talked about that from the very beginning of the season. I thought early on Portland felt very good about themselves. When you play a team like that, 0-6 in league and haven't won in awhile, they get a little desperate. They started getting some confidence and they knew they could play with us having taken us to overtime in their building. I just thought our defense needed to better tonight, especially in the first half. We learned a big lesson tonight. We'll get in the film room and try to get better and move on to BYU very quickly."
In the first half Portland's Josh McSwiggan opened the contest with back-to-back threes before Isaiah Pineiro scored on a driving lay-up and followed soon after with a thunderous dunk. Pineiro's tip-in off a miss from Isaiah Wright knotted the score at 8-all with 14:53 left. A JoJo Walker trey pushed the Pilots lead to 19-10 and a Philipp Hartwich bucket inside made it double-digits at 21-10. Swiggan's third trey and 11th point made it 26-14. A Pineiro jumper made it 28-21 inside of a minute to go but UP's Marcus Shaver, Jr. answered with a bucket. Olin Carter's long three-pointer beat the buzzer for the 32-24 halftime score. USD struggled from the field in the first 20 minutes making just 2-of-12 threes and 10-of-31 shots. On the other hand Portland converted 4-of-7 threes and 14-of-27 shots (51.9%).
After the break the Toreros opened on an 8-0 run behind four straight buckets from Pineiro to knot the score at 32-all with 17:08 to go. McSwiggan's fourth three ended the run to make it 35-32. A 6-0 run by the Pilots made it 38-32 but Tyler Williams buried his first trey and Juwan Gray scored on a back-door lay-in to get within 38-37 at 11:36. William's second trey knotted the score at 44-44 following the eight minute media timeout.
A baseline lay-in by Pineiro, his 26th point of the game, gave USD its first lead at 46-44 with 6:25 left. A Gray bucket inside off a nice dish from Wright made it 48-46 Toreros with 2:57 left. Over the closing three minutes everything went Portland's way as they finished with a 9-1 run.
For the game the Toreros (13-6, 4-3 WCC) made 20-of-56 shots (35.7%) and just 4-of-23 from beyond the three-point arc. Isaiah Wright, who totaled 30 points in the overtime win at Portland earlier, scored 3 points but dished out 10 assists and collected 4 steals. Tyler Williams was USD's second leading scorer with 8 points. Portland received a game-high 15 points from Josh McSwiggan (4-5 in threes).
The Toreros head to the state of Utah tomorrow and on Saturday will take on the BYU Cougars at the Marriott Center (6:00 p.m. PST; BYUtv; The Mighty 1090 AM).
