Weber State basketball: Wildcats hold off Portland State 69-60

OGDEN — The Weber State Wildcats waited a year for redemption and they got it on Tuesday night.

But they're far from satisfied.

The Wildcats rid themselves of a yearlong bad taste in their mouths when they beat Portland State, 69-60, in the Big Sky semifinals at the Dee Events Center on Tuesday. Weber State, which was upset in last year's semis by Montana State as a No. 1 seed, advances to play Montana in the conference title game tonight.

The winner earns the Big Sky's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Tonight's game is at 7 and will be televised by ESPN2.

"We've got to win another game," said Weber State guard Damian Lillard. "Ever since last year when we lost this (semifinal) game, we wanted to work hard to get better, just to get back to this moment to redeem ourselves, and now that we have it's onto the next game. We just want to take care of business (tonight), come out and try to do the same thing we did (Tuesday)."

The taking care of business and winning — the Wildcats certainly hope that carries over to the title game. But there are certain aspects of Weber State's victory over Portland State the team knows it has to improve on to advance to the big dance.

The Wildcats shot a dismal 33.3 percent against the Vikings. They were off the mark for much of the game, as they left fans standing and clapping until Franklin Session scored the team's first point on a free throw with 15:55 left in the first half. They missed their first six shots, and it took close to 5 minutes before they made a field goal.

Fortunately for Weber State, there's more to basketball than shooting, the team has the Big Sky MVP on its side in Lillard, and Session provided it with a nice spark early on.

"It's not all about shooting," said coach Randy Rahe. "Success is because of defense and rebounding and making winning plays. There are so many more other aspects to the game. We got really good looks at the basket — shots these guys can make in their sleep and they didn't. It didn't affect how hard we played. Sometimes it can, but it didn't."

The Wildcats were carried by defense, rebounding and winning plays. They held Portland State to its third-lowest scoring output of the season, and forced 16 turnovers. After getting outrebounded by the Vikings in both regular season meetings, Weber State destroyed Portland State on the boards on Tuesday, 48-32.

The Wildcats collected 17 offensive rebounds, compared to just five for the Vikings.

"They got every offensive rebound, and that was the difference in the game," said Portland State coach Tyler Geving.