“He’s left-handed. I’m left-handed,” Legans said. “We’re light-skinned. We can both shoot.”
That’s how Legans ended up coaching the best win of his career, and perhaps the best in Portland history — an 87-80 victory over No. 6 Gonzaga on Wednesday night — while jumping on his left foot with a scooter nearby.
Legans tried to open a hole against that zone, heard a bang, looked back because he thought someone had thrown a ball at his right leg, and when no one was there, he knew.
“I said, s-.”
Achilles tear.
Legans has since coached three games on one foot. The Pilots lost the first two and Legans was scheduled to coach Wednesday’s home game against Gonzaga from the bench, but things started well with him on his feet — er, sorry, feet — and there he stayed.
Here’s a new one for you.
A week ago, so many players were sick for the University of Portland that HC Shantay Legans had to play the scout team. It didn’t go well.
He tore his Achilles tendon.
He told me he was going to play Gonzaga tonight. That still has to happen 😂 pic.twitter.com/Z9VDMzpZHH
— Brenna Greene (@BrennaGreene_) February 5, 2026
“I think I ruined it for our radio guy,” Legans said. “He’s right behind me. I’ve been leaning against the upright the whole fucking game.”
The Pilots, now 11-14 and 4-8 in the West Coast Conference, were a 21.5-point underdog, and for good reason. They return just two scholarship players this season and lost all five starters from last year’s team: one to graduation and four to the transfer portal. Then Riley Parker, an Australian who was expected to start at point guard, had foot surgery that didn’t go as well as planned, and after trying to play one game early, he was ruled out for the year. Freshman forward Timo George, one of the team’s top reserves, is also out for the season. And starter Matus Hronsky, who had missed the previous three games due to illness, returned but played just six minutes against Gonzaga.
Gonzaga (22-2, 10-1) was undefeated in the WCC and had just one loss all season — to No. 2 Michigan — but Legans felt his team had a chance Wednesday.
“My wife always laughs at me,” he says, “because every game I say, ‘If we do all these things, we can win.’”
But this time they did. The Zags led college basketball in paint points; the Pilots held them to 26. They didn’t want to put them at the free throw line, which they did, but Gonzaga went just 18-for-26. On the other hand, Portland was virtually flawless, shooting 59.3 percent against one of the best defensive teams in the country.
Freshman Joel Foxwell worked brilliantly off the ball screens, tying a career high with 27 points and also dishing out eight assists. Portland’s bigs took advantage of mismatches when switched to guards, and Foxwell’s ability to get into the paint kept Gonzaga in rotations all night.
“We’ve been in almost every game,” Legans said. “We had the ball three times against Saint Mary’s. We could have won that game. We could have had Santa Clara on the ropes and we could have won that game. You know, it’s just that we weren’t really able to finish a game. That was the first game we were able to finish.”
Freshman Joel Foxwell set a career high with 27 points in the win. (Amanda Loman/Associated Press)
Impressive, considering Gonzaga is one of the oldest teams in college basketball and Portland ranks 346th in Division I experience.
The Pilots are so short on depth that they recently moved graduate assistant Sam Noland, a former Division III player, to the roster when Legans was told he was still eligible. Noland was filling in for Foxwell against Gonzaga when he left for a minute due to cramps. Noland was also brought in to inbound the ball as Gonzaga pressed late.
“If you had told me at the beginning of this year that he would knock the ball out in a minute, and we were up by 11 on Gonzaga,” Legans said, “I would say, ‘What reality are we living in?’”
Not everything always goes according to plan.
But Legans is walking – sorry, rolling – with a little more optimism this week after the win.
It was hard to keep players in this era, but because he treated the guys well, it led to him bringing in Foxwell, the team’s leading scorer and star against the Zags. Foxwell was former teammates with fellow Australia/former Portland forward Austin Rapp, who is now in Wisconsin, but the Pilots helped get Foxwell on his way out. Other former players starring elsewhere include Max Mackinnon (second leading scorer at LSU) and Tyler Harris (a contributor for No. 15 Vanderbilt).
“We haven’t been able to keep our core guys because they’re all pretty good,” Legans said. “You know it takes a year or two to build something really good, right? And every time you get a good player, you lose him. … But if you can keep these guys, we’d be pretty good.”
Legans says his government is trying to help and find ways to keep his players. (You’d think beating Gonzaga might help raise money.)
For now, the Pilots just need to get healthy enough so they can fully fill the scout team with players.
Legans, who played three seasons at Cal and was an All-WAC second teamer in his senior year at Fresno State in 2004, was He has been known to occasionally jump into a drill to demonstrate, which he said he had even done the day before the tear.
And knowing he might play, of course he stretched, right?
“Forty-four, out of shape, overweight,” he says. “Why would you stretch?”
He officially says goodbye to the scout team. He has now torn both Achilles tendons and the other a few years ago playing one-on-one with his players. He has not had it surgically repaired, and he will not have it surgically repaired.
Instead, an alarm goes off every day at noon so he can take blood thinners – “like an old, old man,” he says – and in three weeks, walk into a trunk and leave the scooter behind.
“That roller is the death of me,” he said. “I’ve got so many cuts and stuff when I fall off this thing, man. It’s not ideal.”
On Saturday, Portland will try to make it two in a row when it hosts Seattle. And as for Legans’ plan to sit down?
No chance, he says.
It is good luck to stand on one foot.
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