Pitt won. Pitt has their 3rd straight Big East regular season title. They beat down a weaker team after spotting them a 14 point lead with less than 8 minutes left in the first half. Here’s the box score and game log. Play along with game notes.
1:30 pm, settling into the chair, see that Dan Shulman and Len Elmore will be calling the game. No complaints. They’ll be doing the Big East Tournament as well, so it’s going to be familiar.
Game starts and the crowd seems a little subdued. Not full throated. Or is that the sound guys filtering them out? The game starts in what seems to be the usual Pitt fashion — sloppy. Missed shots, missed follows, turnovers. Pitt scores first at 17:45 when Troutman follows his own miss with a tip-in.
Odd, Pitt isn’t doing a good job on defensive rebounds. They aren’t boxing out, allowing ‘Nova to get second chances.
Page takes his first shot at 15:53, miss. He is looking to shoot from the outside. Allen Ray of ‘Nova gets the long rebound and scores on a drive to the basket. That’s what Page should be doing. Driving all the way to the hoop. He has decided to be a jump shooter, and that isn’t his style. It wasn’t how he played last year.
TV timeout at 14:32. Pitt is only down 4-2, but they have only taken 5 shots (1-5) while ‘Nova has 8 shots. Pitt has turned the ball over a couple of times and has allowed second shots by the Wildcats. On both ends Pitt looks out of sorts. Disjointed on both offense and defense.
After play resumes, Pitt turns the ball over. That’s 3 straight times. Unbelievable. Pitt is taking nothing but outside shots. They are letting themselves play a perimeter game and no one is getting after the boards. Suddenly it’s 11-2 Villanova and Pitt has to use a 30 second timeout at 12:30. And what happens? Page comes out and launches a 3 — miss.
Sloppy play by both sides ensues, leading to Torree Morris being fouled. He makes 1 of 2 FT. Pitt’s first point in over 6:30 minutes. And the scoring drought continues. Page misses an open 3 and even fails to complete a layup on a break. Pitt finds itself down 17-3, and as the graphic on TV points out — their biggest deficit of the year. Pitt calls another timeout at 8:32. The Pete is a tomb. Nova is playing a slow pace, but they are hustling to the basketball. They are being aggressive. They are making Pitt look slow.
Pitt actually gets a basket when Taft gets a lay-up at 7:21 to make it 17-5. Pitt’s first basket in over 10 minutes.
Taft scores again, getting the offensive rebound and laying it in. Nova misses again, and Taft lays another one in. It’s now 17-9. The crowd starts sounding alive, and Villanova takes a 30 second timeout at 5:45. Nova turns it over, but Troutman misses the lay-up — but Taft with a put-back dunk! The crowd noise really picks up.
How has ESPN SportsCenter not done a feature on Taft this year? It’s a cakewalk, set it to the “Shaft” theme music. Alternative lyrics with “TAFT!” If they miss this opportunity in the Big East Tournament, someone needs to be fired.
Page misses another jumper. His shot is just not there. He settled for the jumper, though, when he had a step on his defender to the basket. Frustrating to watch.
Villanova ends it’s scoring drought to make it 19-11 at 4:10, but Krauser answers with his first basket of the game.
TV timeout at 2:43. This game has taken an eerily familiar feel to early Big East conference games of Pitt. Where they would come out sluggish, out of sorts, not ready; then anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes into the game a light would go on and Pitt would start playing its game.
Out of the timeout and Page misses another wide open 3-point shot. At this rate, Nova might as well leave Page alone on the perimeter.
The half ends and Pitt is down by 5, 22-17. It was Pitt’s lowest scoring half of the season. Still considering Pitt was down by 14 more than halfway through the quarter, Pitt has a good shot. Page, Brown and Krauser shot a combined 1 for 14. As a team, Pitt shot 7 for 24.
Villanova gets the ball to start the second half and Allen Ray immediately nails a jumper. Damn.
Page misses an up and under shot. Then a minute later misses an open 3. He couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat today. Geez.
It’s Taft again on offense. He puts one back on a rebound then scores on a lay up, though he misses the free throw when fouled scoring. Pitt gets the rebound. Oh s**t, Troutman takes a 3. And he makes it! Tie game at 24. Wow.
Nova misses again. Pitt gets the ball and a TV timeout at 15:57. Pitt is on a 7-0 run.
Out of the timeout, Brown hits a runner. 26-24. Pitt has its first lead since being up 2-0.
Now Pitt is getting the rebounds and putting the pressure on Villanova. The Wildcats are wilting a little. You can see them start to press. They commit another turnover, and Troutman is all alone under the basket for an easy lay-in. ‘Nova has to take a 30 second timeout. It doesn’t help. Foye commits another turnover (he committed 7 in the game), and Allen Ray has to foul Troutman to prevent the breakaway lay-up. Troutman nails both free throws and Pitt is now up 30-24. Less than a minute later Brown nails a huge,open 3. Pitt has a 33-24 lead. A 16-0 run. Villanova takes another 30 second timeout.
Then confusion. The refs give Page a technical, but nobody knows why (apparently he got it for jawing or taunting Allen Ray of Villanova). Allen Ray sinks both free throws then puts down a jumper to make it a 33-28 game. This is part of Villanova’s 13-4 run to tie the game at 37, with 8:27 left. Ray scored 10 of the 13 points for Villanova.
The Pete got very quiet during that run. Pitt is starting to look shaky again. In that run, Krauser got called for a pushing off foul with the ball. Elmore points out that he uses his elbow to try and shove the guy out of the way. I now get why he doesn’t get more blocking calls when he drives. He’s always pushing, shoving into the defender.
Taft gets fouled and makes 1-2 free throws to give Pitt a 38-37 lead with 7:45 left. McCarroll misses a 3, then Page makes a steal on Villanova at their end. The ball heads out of bounds and a Nova player tries to get it. The ball is stopped on the line and the ref blows the whistle saying it’s out of bounds, Pitt ball. This is right in front of Nova coach Jay Wright who starts screaming and is immediately given a technical. Krauser drops both free throws, and on the ensuing possession is fouled. This sends Pitt to the double bonus and Krauser makes the next pair.
Now it is 42-37 Pitt. The Pete starts to roar again. Villanova goes ice cold, impatience and sloppiness. Pitt goes up 51-37. A 14-0 run where Pitt only had 6 points on baskets, and 8 from free throws. Nova ended the drought at 1:38 with a 3 but it was too late. Pitt keeps making foul shots down the stretch. With less than a minute left, Brown and Page — the seniors — come out to a standing ovation for each. Then on the next stoppage Troutman and Taft. After that, Krauser.
There was a shot of Morris — the 3rd senior — on the bench in his warm-up suit — he hadn’t been in except for 2 minutes in the first half. Dixon apparently asked if he wanted in for the last minute, but he declined.
Final score, Pitt 59-45
The game was all about the inside play of Taft and Troutman for the second straight game. Taft was the player of the game with a double-double — 16 points and 11 rebounds. He was 7-10 shooting. His only negative was 2-6 from the free throw line.
Troutman went for 17 points (6-12 shooting) and 7 rebounds. He also had 4 steals.
Krauser had 11 points but only 2 came from the field (1-9). The other 9 came on free throws. Brown had 7 points on 2-5 shooting and 2-2 free throws.
Page, though, was hideous once more. 0-8 shooting, including 0-5 from 3-point. He got 5 points on 5-6 from the free throw line. I just do not understand why he refuses to drive to the basket. He is so powerful off the dribble, but keeps pulling up, or waiting to take an open look. It isn’t working.
It’s not a struggle for me; I’m still shooting the ball. It’s difficult sometimes when you’re playing hard
defense; you get tired when you switch to offense. All I care about is that we win. If I shoot badly and we
still win, I’ll shoot 0-8 every night.
No matter how much he protests Pitt needs him to be a reliable scorer.
During the telecast, they kept flashing to the “thousands” of balloons in the nets that they were going to drop if Pitt won. It was amusing in a way because the first time they showed them, Pitt was down big, so the comments were almost sarcastic, then it changed to an “if,” then “maybe,” and finally inevitability.
