Complete notes and stats in pdf

Portland State will step out of Big Sky Conference play on Saturday afternoon to meet Loyola Marymount in an ESPN BracketBuster game. It is one of 57 games taking place in the ESPN series, although it is not one of the 11 televised games. There is a special tip time of 4:05 p.m. as the Vikings will play a doubleheader with the PSU women (vs. NAU at 1 p.m.). The game will be carried on Freedom 970 AM and www.970.am. It can also be seen via live video stream at www.b2tv.com.
   
PSU (11-14, 4-9) is playing in its fifth BracketBuster game in the last seven seasons. The Vikings are 1-3 in the previous four, winning their only home contest (over Boise State in 2009).
   
Portland State is trying to stop a downward trend in recent weeks. The Vikings have lost four straight games and eight of their last 10. PSU takes an 8-4 home record into the game, but has lost two of its last three at home.
   
A glimmer of good news comes in the form of the return of JR F Chehales Tapscott. After missing six games following knee surgery, the Vikings' leading rebounder returned in an 80-58 loss to Weber State on Wednesday. Tapscott came off the bench for 17 minutes of action, scoring five points with a team-high six rebounds.
   
Loyola Marymount defeated West Coast Conference foe Pepperdine on Wednesday, 82-79. That win stopped a four-game losing streak for the Lions. LMU is 10-17 this season, 2-10 in the WCC. Prior to Wednesday's win, the Lions had lost nine of their previous 10 games.
   
Saturday's game is Portland State's 13th non-conference game of the season. The Vikings are 7-5 against non-conference opponents. PSU has one more out-of-league game on Mar. 10 when it travels to Seattle University.

PORTLAND STATE VIKINGS (11-14) vs. LOYOLA MARYMOUNT LIONS (10-17)
Saturday, February 19, 2011, 4:05 p.m. @ Peter W. Stott Center (1,500), Portland, OR
Television: None
Radio: Freedom 970 AM, www.970.am • Play-by-play: Tom Hewitt • Pregame Show: 3:30 p.m.
Live Video Stream: www.b2tv.com • Live Stats: www.GoViks.com
All-Time Series: PSU leads 2-1 • PSU in Portland: 1-0

STORYLINES
• The series: Portland State leads the all-time series with Loyola Marymount, 2-1, but the teams have not met since the 2001-02 season... series games include: LMU 88, PSU 84 in overtime in Los Angeles, Dec. 16, 1997; PSU 66, LMU 62 in Los Angeles, Dec. 16, 2000; PSU 90, LMU 78 in Portland, Jan. 5, 2002.
• Vikings in the BracketBuster: Portland State will be playing its fifth ESPN BracketBuster game in the last seven seasons. The Vikings are 1-3 in the previous four with the home team winning every game. PSU is 2-2 in the return games.
    Feb. 19, 2005: at Middle Tennessee State 83, Portland State 62
    Feb. 17, 2007: at Cal Poly 92, Portland State 87
    Feb. 23, 2008: at Cal State Fullerton 85, Portland State 69
    Feb. 21, 2009: at Portland State 93, Boise State 81
• Vikings vs. the WCC: PSU is 1-1 against WCC teams this year, beating Pepperdine and losing to Portland... The Vikings are 3-2 against WCC teams in Head Coach Tyler Geving's two seasons... PSU is 6-2 against the WCC dating back to the start of the 2007-08 season, including 3-1 vs. Portland, 2-0 vs. Pepperdine, 1-0 vs. Gonzaga and 0-1 vs. Saint Mary's. Wins over #7 Gonzaga (2008-09) and #25 Portland (2009-10) came against nationally-ranked teams.
• The Lions: Loyola Marymount was 18-16 last season, including 7-7 in the West Coast Conference. The Lions were selected to the College Inside Postseason Tournament, losing in the first round... Head Coach Max Good is in his third season at LMU. Good has a 31-58 record. He is 273-281 all-time in 19 seasons as a collegiate head coach. Good has never faced the Vikings.
• This year: Loyola Marymount is 10-17 this season, 2-10 in the West Coast Conference. The Lions are 2-9 in road games... Drew Viney, who has suffered from migraines and missed some action in recent weeks, returned to score 21 points for the Lions on Wednesday. He leads the team with 15.7 points and 6.5 rebounds per game this year... Vernon Teel averages 12.3 points and 3.9 assists per game... Anthony Ireland is the only Lion to play in every game this year. He averages 10.0 points, 3.1 assists and has a team-high 31 three-point field goals... the Lions shoot just .426 from the field and make only 4.5 three-pointers per game... in contrast, they outrebounded opponents by 3.4 per game and average 4.3 blocked shots.

VIKING HEAD COACH TYLER GEVING
Tyler Geving is in his second season as Head Coach and sixth season overall with the Portland State program. Geving has a 24-33 record with the Vikings. He was 13-19 in 2009-10 and led PSU to the Big Sky Tournament semifinals. Geving is a 1996 graduate of Central Washington and has been in collegiate coaching for 16 years.
   
Geving has never faced Loyola Marymount, but is 3-2 in two seasons against West Coast Conference schools. He is 12-19 all-time against Big Sky Conference opponents. Geving is 12-14 all-time in non-conference games.
   
The second-year Head Coach is assisted by Andy McClouskey (1st year, Oregon State, 1982), Eric Harper (6th year, Central Washington, 1995) and Anthony Owens (2nd year, Great Falls, 2006). Former Viking player Mickey Polis is the Director of Operations (2nd year, Portland State, 2009).

GAME WEEK ACTIVITIES
VIKINGS ON RADIO: All Portland State basketball games can be heard on Freedom 970 AM and www.970.am. The Viking Pregame Show begins one-half hour prior to tipoff with Tom Hewitt calling all the action.
INTERNET STREAMING: Live streaming video of all Portland State home and Big Sky Conference games can be seen free at www.b2TV.com. Live stats for Portland State home games are at www.GoViks.com.
TICKETS: Portland State Basketball tickets are priced from $10-$15 for adults and $7-$10 for juniors and seniors. Tickets can be purchased online at Ticketmaster.com. They are also available to the Portland State ticket office, or at the Stott Center beginning 90 minutes prior to the game. The Portland State Ticket Office is located Smith Memorial Union, 1825 SW Broadway on the Portland State campus or call 888-VIK-TIKS/503-725-3307.

VIKING BASKETBALL TAKES PART IN FOOD DRIVE MONTH
February is the annual Governor's State Employees Food Drive Month, and Portland State University is participating by placing food barrels throughout the campus during the entire month. The drive kicked off Monday, Jan. 31, and will run through Monday, Feb. 28.
   
Any fan bringing a food item for donation to the Food Drive for the Feb. 24 Montana game and/or Feb. 26 Montana State game will receive a discounted $7 ticket.
   
Hunger in Oregon continues to hover above the national average, according to a report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “Due to the impacts of the current national recession, we are now amongst the hungriest states in the nation,” wrote then-governor elect John Kitzhaber in a Dec. 8 letter to food drive coordinators.
   
Non-perishable food items especially needed are canned foods, canned and boxed meals, peanut butter (plastic jars only please), pasta, rice, cereal, powdered milk and fruit juices. Monetary donations are also needed. Checks should be made payable to the Oregon Food Bank and will be collected by Amy Ross, Executive Assistant, President's Office (341 Cramer Hall).
   
For more information, go to http://www.oregon.gov/FOODDRIVE/

FAST BREAKS
WINNING LINES 
• PSU is 8-4 at home this year, 3-3 in Big Sky home games... since the start of the 2007-08 season, Portland State is 41-10 at home, including 25-7 in Big Sky Conference games.
• The Vikings are 3-10 on the road this season, including 2-0 in neutral site games... PSU is 1-6 in Big Sky road games.
• PSU has gone 109-37 in 146 games at the Stott Center since the 1996-97 season. Including home games at Memorial Coliseum (12-6) and the Rose Garden (19-9), the Vikings are 140-52 at home over the past 15 seasons.

ROAD WEARY IN THE BIG SKY CONFERENCE, ONE AND ALL: With as challenging a travel schedule as any league in the country, the Big Sky Conference proves how hard it is to win on the road - just by looking at records.
    • The bottom five teams in the league are an unbelievable 5-59 in road games.
    • The Vikings, currently in seventh in the conference, are only 1-10 on the road.
    • The top four teams (all with records over .500) are a mediocre 18-31 on the road.
    • In league play, the top two teams - Montana and Northern Colorado are 7-6 on the road. The other seven teams are 8-38 on the road. That makes 15-44 overall for road teams.

THE SHOT WON'T FALL: Portland State has lost six of seven games, and in all five losses shot poorly... in the five losses PSU was 119-318 from the field (.374)... the Vikings shoot .470 when they win, .401 when they lose this year.

MISSING THE GLASS MAN: With leading rebounder JR F Chehales Tapscott (8.1 pg) out, the Vikings were outrebounded by their last five opponents by an average of 10.8 boards per game. Tapscott came back to grab six rebounds in 17 minutes on Wednesday, but the Vikings were still outrebounded by 14 by Weber State.

A LITTLE PERSPECTIVE: Despite losing eight of the last 10 games, the 11-14 Vikings are still a game ahead of last year's pace (10-15). PSU was 13-19 overall last season. 

GIVING HIS BIG SKY BEST: JR G Charles Odum has been tearing up the Big Sky. In 13 Big Sky games, Odum averages a team-best 15.9 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.6 assists. He is shooting .566 from the field, .529 from three-point range and .705 at the line in Big Sky games. Odum has led the team in scoring six times and twice set a new career-high. He has career-high 24-point games at Montana (1/15) and against Idaho State (2/10), and grabbed a career-high nine rebounds against Northern Arizona (1/22)... Odum was averaging 12.7 points in non-conference games... Odum now averages a team-leading 14.4 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.6 assists, shoots .527 from the field, .444 from three-point range and .732 at the line for the season… Odum has led the Vikings in scoring 11 times and has five 20-point games.

HE'S GOT A HANDLE ON IT: Moving JR G Charles Odum into the starting lineup meant moving SR G Melvin Jones over to the point from his more comfortable shooting-guard role. Jones has responded by committing just 13 turnovers in 14 games... in the Jan. 29 win over Sacramento State, Jones put up one of his best shooting lines in two seasons as a Viking. He made 6-9 field goals, including 5-7 from three-point range. The shot that will be most remembered though was the 5-10 guard's driving dunk after the Hornets had closed the Viking lead to five inside the final minute... Jones is averaging 11.2 points, 2.4 assists and has team-bests of 60 three-point field goals and an .810 free throw percentage.

TOWERING TREE: SR F Tree Thomas went for a career-high 29 points in the Vikings' win over Sacramento State on Jan. 29. He made 9-16 from the field and 11-13 at the line. The last time a Viking scored more points was 49 games ago (32 by Dominic Waters on Nov. 21, 2009 against Cal Poly)... Thomas has scored 123 points (42-81 FG) in his last nine games (13.7) and raised his scoring average to 9.6 per game this year. Thomas is now shooting .491 from the field and .804 at the line. He averages 11.5 points and shoots .520 in Big Sky Conference games.

LOOKING FOR A SLUMP BUSTER: SO G Chris Harriel has gone through a shooting slump in the last nine games, averaging just 8.4 points and shooting 27% from the field. Prior to that, his play made him the easy choice for Most Improved Viking this season while averaging 16.2 points... Harriel has already set three new career scoring highs (now 25) and three new career rebounding highs (now 12)... Harriel averages 13.5 points per game, 5.3 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.4 steals.

ANOTHER GUY LOOKING FOR A STREAK: SR F Phil Nelson is another Viking trying to find a positive shooting streak. Since returning from injury 11 games, he has shot just .244 from the field and .254 from three-point range, averaging 5.5 points and 3.8 rebounds in 25 minutes per game. Nelson has started the last three games... his numbers are way down from the previous two seasons and certainly are related to his foot injuries and conditioning. Nelson's long-awaited return came on Jan. 8 against Eastern Washington. He had missed 26 straight games after breaking his left foot twice. Nelson broke his foot late last January, missing the final 12 games of the season. He had been averaging 12.9 points and had 48 three-point field goals through 20 games. Nelson reinjured the foot on Nov. 8 and missed the first 14 games of this year. PSU went 13-13 in the 26 games Nelson had missed since Jan. 30... Nelson has started 56 games in his Viking career. PSU is 31-25 in those games and 34-30 overall in games he plays.

TAP IS BACK: A knee injury for JR F Chehales Tapscott put his season on hold for three weeks. He missed six games and underwent surgery on Jan. 26 to repair cartilage damage in his right knee. Tapscott's return came at Weber State (2/16), where he had five points and six rebounds in 17 minutes off the bench... the former NWAACC Player of the Year from Clackamas CC is averaging 11.3 points, a team-high 8.1 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game. He is shooting .449 from the field and has 13 blocked shots.

DANE'S DIMES: Coach Tyler Geving has gone back to using JR G Dane Johnson almost exclusive as backup point guard. He has averaged 20 minutes per game over the last six contests and handed out 21 assists during that span... in the last three games, Johnson has 30 points (8-10 FG, 6-7 3-pt, 8-9 FT), and has 10 assists... Johnson leads the Vikings this year with 71 assists while starting 12 games and averaging 18 minutes per game... Johnson had a career-high 12 points at Northern Colorado (3-3 3-pt FG, 3-3 FT), four assists and two steals... he shoots .545 from the field, .429 from three-point range and has a remarkable 71/29 assist-to-turnover ratio.