San Francisco vs. Pacific Preview
By Mary Harvill
USF Dons (12-17; 6-11 Conference) vs. Pacific Tigers (12-17; 4-13 Conference)
Date and Time: Saturday, February 28, 2015 at 7 PST
Location: War Memorial Gym, USF Campus, San Francisco, CA
TV: CSNBA – Glen Kuiper, Play-by-Play; Dan Belluomini, Analyst
Audio: http://new.livestream.com/thewtv/USFmbbaudioonly. Pat Olson Play by Play and Jim Brovelli, Expert Analyst and former USF Men’s Basketball Coach
Meet the Teams
San Francisco
It has been 2 months since Pacific and USF met with lots of water under the Bay Bridge in between.
Jan 18, 2014; San Francisco, CA, USA; San Francisco Dons forward Kruize Pinkins (15) takes a shot against the San Diego Toreros during the second half at War Memorial Gymnasium. The San Francisco Dons defeated the San Diego Toreros 64-62. Mandatory Credit: Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports
USF Seniors Matt Glover, Chris Adams, Kruize Pinkins and Gavin Hoffman will be honored at tonight’s game which are both the last regular season game for the Dons and the last home game. While Glover, Adams and Pinkins’ careers are well known, a special shout out goes to Gavin Hoffman who practiced on The Hilltop every day and gave his best efforts to readying the team for its regular season and tournament games. The Gavin Hoffman’s are the unsung heroes of each program demonstrating their dedication and grit year in and year out.
As I am often compelled to remind my readers and the rest of the world in general, athletics is the vehicle by which these young men gain entrance to college and earn a college degree to take with them for the rest of their lives after their college basketball careers are over. If this isn’t obvious, take a gander at the crowd when you take in a game in person sometime. The stands are full of former scholar-athletes, male and female. That’s why Senior night is special experience and our chance to honor these athletes.
Hopefully the Dons will have left the Saint Mary’s game in the rearview mirror and are ready to cap off the season with a win against a trending Pacific. After a ceremonial starting lineup containing the seniors, look for Tim Derksen, Mark Tollefsen, Devin Watson, Kruize Pinkins and Matt Christiansen to carry the Dons forward into the first half.
Pacific
Settling into the role of spoiler of late, Pacific has taken down Portland and Santa Clara. Look for this team to be motivated to do the same with USF.
Sophomore Thomas Peters was named to the WCC All Conference Academic team, a great honor. Now we know where the brain trust on the team is housed in addition to Peters’ talent on the basketball floor.
Coming off a solid win against Santa Clara, the Tigers excelled in defense combined with a balanced approach. 4 of their players in finished in double figures (Eric Thompson, Ray Bowles, TJ Wallace and Gabriel Aguirre.) Aguirre is the only senior on Pacific’s roster, so all of this seasoning for the year will benefit Pacific next season.
A Look Ahead at the WCC Tournament
Both teams will have an eye towards the WCC tournament. Bracket pairings will be released on Sunday, March 1st. With congestion in the middle to the bottom of the WCC standings and nearly identical conference win/loss records for 6 teams, the Saturday games this week will make or break some of the first round pairings for the tournament, so the game between USF and Pacific should be a lively contest. The Saturday games for LMU, Santa Clara, Portland and San Diego will be lively too.
Pacific and LMU are scraping the bottom with identical 4-11 conference records. USF and Santa Clara have identical 6-11 records. Portland and San Diego are at 7-10.