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GAME NOTES: Lost at the bottom of the West Coast Conference standings this late in the season, the San Diego Toreros try to salvage some respect as they take on the University of Portland Pilots at the Chiles Center tonight.

Since posting back-to-back wins against Florida A&M and Santa Clara in early January, the Toreros have won just a single game, that being a 66-44 triumph over Pepperdine on the road on January 30th. Meanwhile, the squad has dropped two in a row as a result of their 59-43 setback to Santa Clara on Saturday, dropping them to 2-7 in conference.

As for the Pilots, currently 5-3 versus the rest of the WCC, they had a four- game win streak snapped last week by nationally-ranked Gonzaga on the road, 76-49. Given that Portland fell by just three points in the first meeting with the Bulldogs a month earlier, the latest result seems to indicate the Pilots have taken a step in the wrong direction.

San Diego leads the all-time series with the Pilots by a count of 41-23, although it was Portland that won the first meeting of the season last month by a score of 63-54 at Jenny Craig Pavilion.

At the break against Santa Clara over the weekend, the Toreros trailed only by two points at 26-24, but that was before San Diego posted a total of just five field goals in the second half of the 16-point loss. Not a single player scored in double figures for the Toreros as one might imagine, with Roberto Mafra coming closest with his eight points in just 14 minutes off the bench. The offense for the Toreros in conference play this season has been simply brutal, coming up with a mere 58.9 ppg on 39.5 percent shooting from the field. The squad is being beaten on the glass by more than six rebounds per game and has made 35 fewer free throws in those nine games. Brandon Johnson is credited with 12.8 ppg in those contests, but his 34.3 percent shooting from the floor has been atrocious.

Still dealing with the loss of Nik Raivio to a strained right Achilles, the Pilots struggled in their meeting with Gonzaga, as expected, shooting only 35.8 percent from the field and 6-of-22 behind the three-point line. Robin Smeulders accounted for 12 points and Ethan Niedermeyer 11, while T.J. Campbell had an awful game with just 1-of-10 shooting from the field and a total of seven turnovers. Not only is Raivio the leading scorer for the Pilots so far this season with his 14.1 ppg, he is also one of the better rebounders with just over six boards per outing, but now that means teammates like Luke Sikma (8.0 rpg) and Smeulders (13.0 ppg, 6.5 rpg) will have to fill the void left by the star performer. The squad is still outscoring the competition by a margin of 5.4 ppg, but much of that has to do with the fact that the opposition is still shooting just 65.4 percent at the free-throw line.

Even without Raivio for this meeting the Pilots are a better squad, considering how poorly San Diego has played these last few weeks.