The Portland Pilots entered this season enduring six straight seasons of losing basketball. The Pilots did something about that after last season hiring Shantay Legans, who coached Eastern Washington to the NCAA Tournament last season while establishing himself as one of the up-and-coming coaches.

Legans is making a huge difference so far at Portland as the Pilots are 8-3.  

Despite this it's doubtful Oregon gets too excited about this West Coast Conference opponent. Not after the Ducks just played their first two Pac-12 games and host top-ranked Baylor on Saturday. It's a major lookahead spot for Oregon, who have failed to cover seven of its last eight games. 
Portland has covered in all five of its road/neutral site games this season. 

The Ducks are not built to cover huge spreads because of the slow pace they play at. They also rank 319th in defensive two-point percentage.  
The Pilots are the fourth-best free throw shooting team in the nation knocking down 81 percent of their free throws. 

The combination of Oregon's slow tempo, Portland's outstanding free throw shooting ability and excellent coaching plus the Ducks' look-ahead matchup to Baylor leads me to believe the Pilots can stay within this large point spread. 

(Editor's note: Stephen Nover is one of the top basketball handicappers in North America. Stephen is 18-9 on his last 27 premium/free NBA plays and 13-7 on his past 20 college basketball premium/free plays. Don't miss any of his winners, all of which come with his signature deep analysis.)