Portland, Oregon Basketball

By Gregory Crawford, Managing Editor of the Alford/Crawford East West Hoops

Each week, or even more, myself and our senior editor Jovan Alford will try to give you a little flavor of our hometowns, Portland, Oregon and Philadelphia, as per the basketball scene. Of course Philadelphia and Portland will forever be joined at the hip, as per the dramatic NBA Finals of 1977, when the heavily favored 76ers, lost four straight in the NBA Finals to the a Bill Walton led Trail Blazer team, still to this day, one of the great Finals in NBA history and forever changed basketball in Rip City. Enjoy.

Trail Blazers----In the midst of a five game winning streak, the Blazers have to endure two five game road trips in the month of March. Terry Stotts is proving that he is a wonderful NBA coach, as many people have said for a long time.

Of course it does not hurt to have two NBA super-stars in the starting line-up, with Lillard and Aldridge. With the tough road schedule, the Blazers need to fight like crazy in March to maintain fourth or higher in the western conference and gain the first round home court advantage.

Portland State----After two mid-February losses at home to Northern Arizona and Sacramento State, everyone wrote off the Vikings. But with Tyler Geving as head coach, you are going to see a team that plays hard every single night. The Vikings over the weekend, ended a four game road stretch, winning 3 of 4 and are now very much back in the playoff hunt for a Big Sky playoff berth.

Portland State will close out the regular season this week, with games against Weber State and Idaho State. Both winnable and almost must wins if the playoffs are going to come calling in 2014.

U of Portland----It was a much better season for the Pilots on the court in 2013-14 as compared to 2012-13, as the Pilots finished the year at 15-15.

The Pilots had to overcome one of the most brutal league schedules ever given any team in the history of sports. The first five WCC league games were played home, with no students in attendance and also meaning 55 percent of the league home schedule was over by January 9th.

With all those home games, U of Portland finished the regular season losing four straight on the road and needs to re-gather some momentum for the WCC tournament which opens this week, as the Pilots being the 7th seed, match up with 10, Loyola Marymount.