West Coast Convo
Fansided

Wintering’s Game Winner thwarts Pacific’s comeback

By David Thompson

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Nothing seemed to be going smoothly last night. The Pilots weren’t securing defensive rebounds, they were missing free-throws, Wintering couldn’t make a shot, van der Mars was hitting shots, but couldn’t stay out of foul trouble, and to top it off Pacific had climbed out of an 11 point deficit to tie the game with 9 seconds left on a Dulani Robinson three. Even on the final play things weren’t going well, it was clear that Wintering was trying to get the ball to Kevin Bailey, but in the end, it didn’t really matter.

Wintering’s game winning three snapped the Portland’s three game skid, and allowed Pilot Nation to sleep a little easier last night. Wintering was 1-7 up to that point, and had played somewhat passively in the second half, passing up scoring opportunities to get a better opportunity for teammates. He finished the night with 8 points, on 2-8 shooting, with 7 assists, 4 boards and only 2 turnovers. It turned out to be just enough.

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In other Pilot news, it was nice to see van der Mars have one of his uber-efficient and uber-effective games. The senior scored 17 on only 10 shots grabbed 8 rebounds in only 25 minutes due to foul trouble. This is the van der Mars that Portland has been expecting every night, so there’s a positive there.

The worrisome part for Portland is that once again, they failed to put their opponent away. In too many games this season (Oregon State, UNLV, Pepperdine just to name a few) the Pilots have controlled the game until they let their lead slowly slip away by missing free-throws, turning the ball over, failing to rebound, etc. But like I mentioned before Portland is in win-now mode and they won, so they will take it, and move on.

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