Lots and lots of articles in the locals the last couple days. I’m crunched on free time, so here’s the rundown.
Scouting reports and info on the actual team and their style of play. UCF sold their allotment of tickets for the game.
UCF playing with house money, beware the upset articles are typical fare. They are true, but they are also predictable works.
Notebook piece leads with more comments about how the seeding is not important. Page has said his ankle feels fine and he will play. I just hope Dixon limits his minutes. Get Graves and Demetrius in there for him a little more in the first game. Brandin Knight gave him a call the other day. Knight also spoke to the team yesterday and watched them practice.
A look at the “pod” where Pitt is playing reveals that it’s all about defense.
Guess what? Pitt’s bench will be important. Whoa. Too much information.
Pitt great, Jerome Lane, likes this Pitt team better than the ones he played on in the 80s. It’s interesting to read because of the harsh words he has for his former Pitt coach Paul Evans, ” now a real estate salesman in Annapolis, Md., did not respond to requests to talk about his days at Pitt or this year’s team.”
Long column on Jamie Dixon and how he prepared to become a head coach — his note taking is apparently the stuff of legends.
Mike Pirusta of the Trib is hedging on Pitt’s chances, looking at all their potential opponents to get to the Final Four. Eh, really it’s just one more game than expected that is going to be difficult. Even as a #2 seed, Pitt would have had someone like OSU to face. Now, it’s just a matter of doing it.
Cook cribs my notes for his column today. From my game notes on the BET Championship game.
Pitt’s outside shots weren’t there. Krauser, Page and Brown each had only 1 basket in the second half. In the first half Pitt dominated points in the paint with 22 of their 34. They got away from that in the second half, settling for jumpers and not getting it inside to Taft, Troutman, Morris or even McCarroll. In the second half, Troutman only had one basket (1-1 shooting, and 1-2 on free throws), and Taft only had 3 shots (2-3, but also 2-4 on free throws). I don’t know if I should blame Krauser at point for not trying to get the ball inside more, or Coach Dixon for not instructing the players to do so. That’s when Pitt loses. When they forget to get it inside.
Cook today:
The shot total was so astonishing for a point guard that it staggered even Carl Krauser.
“I shot it 18 times? I didn’t know that,” Krauser said after Pitt’s semifinal win against Boston College in the Big East tournament last week.
Krauser took 42 shots in the three games at Madison Square Garden. That wasn’t just the most on the Pitt team. It was more than Chris Taft’s and Chevon Troutman’s combined total of 38.
And you wonder why the Pitt offense is struggling?
…
Krauser has the ability to get the ball to Taft and Troutman down low. They’re both good enough passers that they can find the other when the defense sags or hit Brown slashing to the basket or get the ball back outside to Krauser or Julius Page for an open shot. “A lot of things can work through your big guys,” Krauser acknowledged. “When you’ve got a great interior passing team like we do, it makes the game a lot easier.”This isn’t all on Krauser to share the ball more. Taft and Troutman need to do a better job demanding it.
I only pointed it out in a conclusory paragraph. He makes it a whole column.
In papers outside of Pittsburgh.
The idea of an upset win for UCF has people in Orlando dreaming of it making UCF a known team. Up there with other teams that have done it like Cleveland State. The columnist pulls a lot of stuff from the Pittsburgh papers to show how know one is respecting UCF. The respect issue is mentioned again in a notebook piece about the match-up in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. There was also this.
Seconds after the Pittsburgh players took the court for practice Thursday, a Wisconsin fan clearly anticipating the second-round showdown began taunting the Panthers. “Wis-CON-sin!”
Wouldn’t that guy feel really stupid if Richmond beat the Badgers.
UCF also plays a half-court, deliberate offense so that won’t be much of an adjustment for them. A notebook column sounds a little bitter in one part about how UCF didn’t get invited to join the Big East, while USF did; and t-shirt wars.
Both Pittsburgh and UCF showed up with new t-shirts to mark their NCAA appearances.
The Panthers went through Thursday’s practice with the slogan “We all we got” on the backs of their shirts.
“It’s one of a bunch of mottos they have,” Pittsburgh Coach Jamie Dixon said. “That’s the only one we could get on a shirt.”
UCF shirts were suggested by assistant coach Craig Brown. They have a school logo on the front. On the back: “March Madness” and “Dancing in 2004!”
Oh, and in light of the whole seeding issue and late conference championship games that cost Wisconsin at least one spot in seedings, the Big Eleven wants to talk to CBS about the times for the conference championship game (no doubt, so does the Big XII).
