OGDEN — Maybe the Wildcats aren't in such bad shape after all. On Monday morning, Weber State coach Joe Cravens was feeling rather pessimistic about how things were going. But who could blame him? His starting center was out with a punctured lung, his team had lost two straight games and on Tuesday the Wildcats were facing one of their toughest opponents of the year.
But then a small miracle happened. Monday afternoon, Lance Allred learned that his chest injury wasn't as serious as originally thought. His recovery was so swift, in fact, that he played 17 minutes and scored six points in the Wildcats' 58-51 win over Portland at the Dee Events Center.
Best of all, the Weber State defense returned to form and helped theWildcats (5-3) avoid their first three-game losing streak in two years.
"I thought we really took a step in the right direction," said Cravens. "We didn't do a great job of attacking them (offensively), but we won because we guarded them. We held them to 19 first half points and 36-percent shooting for the game. If we hold people to 36 percent, we're going to win a lot of games this year. We needed a game like that."
If Weber State has anything to work on, it's free-throw shooting. Going into the game, the Wildcats were hitting 70 percent of their foul shots. But against the Pilots, they connected on only 16 of 29 free throws. If they hope to have any chance against BYU on Saturday, they'll need to do much better than that.
"It was not a pretty game on either end," Cravens said. "Obviously, we've got to shoot free throws better than that."
Nic Sparrow led the Wildcats with 13 points, while Slobodan Ocokoljic and John Hamilton added 12 points apiece. Pat Danley, who started in place of Allred, was also solid with nine points and 10 rebounds. Troy Goodell was singled out by Cravens for his seven rebounds in 14 minutes of play.
Eugene Jeter scored 20 points and Donald Wilson added 17 for Portland(5-3), which shot just 36 percent from the floor, including only 7-for-26 from the three-point line. Casey Frandsen, who scored 21 points and hit five 3-pointers for Portland in its 78-71 loss to the Wildcats a year ago, exemplified the Pilots' shooting woes on Tuesday by going 0-for-8 from behind the arc.
"This game was a definite step in the right direction," Cravens said. "This wasn't Warner Pacific. This is a team that had just beat Nevada, the team that beat us. They won at New Mexico and won at Oregon State. They're a good team. I'm really pleased with this win."
The Wildcats improved to 6-0 all time against the Pilots and now move on to face BYU in the Marriott Center, where WSU has never won.