A Q&A with Pitt Associate Head Coach, Barry Rohrssen. It’s mostly fluff, but there are some nuggets.

You coach Pitt’s forwards and center and work with Aaron Gray every day in practice. Why has he been able to improve so much this season from last?

Rohrssen: The jump in his numbers are reflective with the minutes he’s playing. I’ve always been impressed with Aaron ever since his freshman year. I have buddies who work in the NBA who are scouts and personnel guys. I was telling them about Aaron ever since he was a freshman, and they were like, ‘Well, he’s not playing. He’s overweight.’ I said, listen, ‘I want to make you look good with your boss. Take down his name because one day he’s going to make you look good.’ One of the things that separates Aaron is his work ethic and desire to improve. He wants to be a better player. One thing about Aaron is impressive to me is his unselfishness, his sharing of the basketball. It’s not a black hole when it goes in there. If you give the ball to Aaron and you cut or you space out, you’re going to get it back. He is a very unselfish player.

Isn’t neat how idle speculation becomes a rumor? Take the speculation that Arizona State might consider Jamie Dixon as its next coach. Today it starts making the leap.

Rumor of the Week: Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon to Arizona State for mega-bucks. As it did with Dixon before, Pitt may move an assistant up to the first chair to help keep Pitt’s New York city recruiting pipeline alive. Unless, Xavier head coach, Pittsburg area native and former Pitt player Sean Miller can get out of his long-term pact with the Musketeers.

I have to laugh. A speculation that ASU might consider Dixon noted that if money is the issue it wouldn’t be the problem consider Dixon’s present pay. Now it’s that he will get a mega-sized deal from ASU. It really is kind of funny.

The Pitt program gets some respect and love in the Providence Journal.

They’ve lost Ricardo Greer and Donatas Zavackas, Jaron Brown and Julius Page. They’ve also lost Brandin Knight and Ontario Lett, Chris Taft and Chevy Troutman. They even lost the architect, coach Ben Howland.

Yet through all the personnel alterations, the Pittsburgh Panthers are still looking good these days. Make that looking real good.

Pitt is ranked ninth in the country and coming off a knock-down, drag-out loss at Connecticut on Tuesday that reminded any doubters that the Panthers (17-2) can be every bit as good as anyone in the country. The players may change, but the five-year run of success at Pitt is still clearly rolling along.
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How did Pittsburgh fight its way into the nation’s elite? Though everyone in the Big East was a bit leery of the school’s boosters (The Golden Panthers) in the 1980s, the recipe for success now is good coaching and excellent recruiting. First, the coaching. Howland came to Pitt an unknown but left with enough credentials to secure his dream job at UCLA. He was the 2002 National Coach of the Year, led the Panthers to the Sweet 16 and then punched his ticket West with a 28-5 season in 2003.

After some hemming and hawing from Wake Forest’s Skip Prosser, Pitt gave the head job to Howland’s loyal assistant, Jamie Dixon. He promptly went 31-5, good for the winningest season in Pitt’s history. Last year the Panthers “slipped” to 20-9, and with a load of younger players a mild step backward was certainly possible.

But that’s not all that’s in Pitt’s repertoire. Thanks to the shocking emergence of 7-foot center Aaron Gray and strong play from three freshmen, Pitt won its first 15 games and zoomed from unranked to the top 10.

McNamara has been covering the Big East and Providence for a long time. Outside of Dick Weiss at the NY Daily News, he’s probably the only one who could throw out the Golden Panthers reference and not think he needs to explain it.

There are certain standards of how to report a game like this depending on whether you covering the winning or losing team. The DC papers report a rally and comeback from as much as 15-points down by the Hoyas.

Green made 9 of 14 shots, including a career-best 4 of 7 three-point attempts. His quickness in Georgetown’s matchup zone helped the Hoyas hold Aaron Gray, Pittsburgh’s 7-foot junior, scoreless in the second half. On offense, Thompson pulled Green away from the basket and used him as a point-forward against the Panthers (17-3, 6-3 Big East). During the Hoyas’ decisive 14-4 run late in the game, Green twice drove by Gray and scored on easy layups.

“We thought that if we pulled Jeff away, he’d have a chance to go around him a little bit,” said Thompson, whose team has won six straight. “He made some tough lay-ups, which he does.”

“I just used my quickness against him,” said Green, a 6-foot-9 former All-Met from Northwestern High. “I knew when I came here, me playing the 4 [power forward] and the 5 [center], there was going to be guys bigger than me, so I really had to use my quickness against them and sometimes use my power. I just had to use that in this game a lot.”

The biggest difference between the pros and college is that inside-out threats are more dangerous in college where athleticism has a wider variance.

Pitt had them out of their game early.

Settling for jump shots instead of working their offense for easier inside looks, the Hoyas (16-4, 7-2 Big East) uncharacteristically missed seven consecutive 3-pointers while the Panthers (17-3, 6-3) parlayed a monster first-half performance from junior center Aaron Gray (15 points at halftime) into a 33-18 advantage late in the first 20 minutes.
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Thompson made a pair of key adjustments, one on each end, that precipitated the comeback.

Defensively, the Hoyas shifted from man-to-man to a sagging matchup zone that engulfed Gray, the 7-foot favorite to earn both the league’s most improved award and its rebounding crown (11.0 a game). An excellent passer and face-up shooter from inside 10 feet, Gray tormented fellow 7-footer Roy Hibbert and Green from point-blank range in the first half.

But after halftime, Gray routinely found himself bracketed by defenders and harassed by fronting guard traffic. Instead of forcing the ball into their most skilled offensive player, the Panthers chose to ignore Gray. He finished the second half with just four shots, zero points and three turnovers.

And offensively Thompson employed one of his favorite post-nullifying strategies, pulling Green out to the top of the key and running the offense through his versatile point forward. Against Duke, this strategy negated the defensive prowess of All-American Shelden Williams and led to a series of backdoor assists from Green. Against Pitt, which overplayed Georgetown’s cutters, it resulted in a season-high scoring eruption from Green.

The efficient 6-foot-9 forward from Hyattsville flipped the tables on Gray in the second half, torturing the slower, bigger man. If Gray gave him space, Green made him pay from behind the arc, drilling four of seven 3-pointers. And when Gray stepped into tight coverage, Green destroyed him off the dribble, slashing past him to the rim for a series of scores down the stretch and finishing 9-for-14 from the field.

I’m stressing what Green did to make a point. There’s only so much you can do against some adjustments and some players. You can’t exactly sit Gray and go with some combination of Young, Kendall, DeGroat, Benjamin and even Biggs inside. Those are still major match-up problems in terms of size, experience and athleticism against the 6’9″ Green, plus the ‘9″ Bowman. It’s a bit akin to the way Curtis Sumpter at Villanova last season was able to kill Troutman because of his ability to play outside as well as going in. It draws a big man who doesn’t have the speed further away from the basket and creates space.

On offense, it was actually easier for Gray when the 7’2″ Hibbert was there rather than Green and whoever else came to defend him.

For the Pittsburgh press, this was about Pitt blowing a lead.

“We felt like we got shots we wanted,” Fields said. “We just missed. That’s just how it goes sometimes.”

“That was a long stretch where we went without scoring,” Dixon said. “We got some open looks, but we just didn’t make them. And we didn’t get any offensive rebounds and didn’t get to the foul line. It was just a combination of things.”

Pitt easily solved Georgetown’s man-to-man defense in the first half. But after shooting 52 percent in the first 20 minutes, the Panthers were 8 for 24 from the field in the second half. The shooting percentage would have been worse had they not made three of their final shots in the last 30 seconds, when they attempted their furious comeback attempt.

“Playing against zone has been a strength of ours,” Dixon said. “We just didn’t do a very good job against it today. We needed to get more penetration. We missed some good shots. We made the right pass a lot of times. We just weren’t clicking out there.”

Center Aaron Gray led Pitt with 15 points and 11 rebounds, but he did not score after halftime. Gray was 0 for 4 from the field in the second half. Georgetown decided to double-team Gray and force others to win the game. Pitt’s other players had a hard time knocking down open mid-range jumpers and 3-pointers.

“We got a little away from what we wanted to do in the second half,” Gray said. “We were playing like we needed to win the game right there on a few of those possessions.”

It still comes down to making shots. Gray was killing them in the first half, and they went with the approach of making sure it was anyone but Gray. It worked. No one else was hitting.

There seems to be some controversy over Fields taking the lay-up in the final seconds rather than kick out for a 3.

Moments later, Georgetown (16-4, 7-2) couldn’t convert from the line again, as Jonathan Wallace missed the front end of a 1-and-1. Pitt’s Sam Young grabbed the rebound and passed to Fields who drove the length of the court for a layup with 3.6 seconds left.

With precious time ticking off the clock, Fields opted for the 2-point shot instead looking for one from behind the arc that could have tied the score.

“We didn’t have any timeouts,” he said. “We could have gone to a layup or kicked it out, but I didn’t want to waste any more time.”

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon backed up Fields on the play, which pulled Pitt within 59-58.

“I thought it worked out well, Dixon said. “The way it worked, you’re not going to get a better shot. We couldn’t have done it any better. We got as good a shot as you could get on the next play, even with them making their two free throws.”

After Fields’ shot, Ramon fouled Georgetown’s Darrel Owens, who made both free throws to extend the Hoyas’ lead back to three and set up Ramon’s last-second shot.

I really had no problem with it. I’d rather see a sure 2 there with no time lost and a chance to at least tie at the end rather than the 3-ball — especially the way Pitt was shooting. If Pitt missed, then they would really have problems. Even if Pitt makes it, G-town gets the last shot. The sure 2 kept more time on the clock and allowed Pitt a final shot to tie.

Man, this can be a surly bunch after a loss. I think there is a bit of underestimating what Bowman and Green did in the second half. They used their athleticism on offense to go inside and outside. They were able to draw Gray further out to the perimeter — spreading the floor. Hibbert only played 11 minutes in the second half as Georgetown went smaller but faster to pass and cut more.

Pitt attempted to answer, which was why Ramon played 16 of the 20 minutes in the second half. They needed him on defense more. That was part of the reason why Benjamin only saw 6 minutes of action in the second half. Ultimately that looks like a mistake because it took away one of the offensive threats Pitt had in the first half — a player capable of taking the ball inside more and keeping Georgetown from using the zone to minimize Gray.

Hopefully, everyone is calming down about the loss and basking in the glow of the Steelers win. Let’s start looking at the numbers and seeing what they tell us.

Pitt
Poss 61.8 Pace Moderate
O-Rating 93.9 D-Rating 98.8 (Eff. Margin -4.9)
eFG% 49.0 PPWS 1.04
A/TO 0.9 TO Rate 24.3% A/B 63.6%
Floor Pct 47.0% FT Prod 15.7

Georgetown
Poss 57.7 Pace Slow
O-Rating 105.7 D-Rating 100.5 (Eff. Margin +5.2)
eFG% 54.1 PPWS 1.12
A/TO 1.8 TO Rate 13.9% A/B 60.9%
Floor Pct 49.1% FT Prod 16.3

Now, what really differentiates the teams was on turnovers. Pitt committed 15 turnovers in the game to Georgetown’s 8. Missed opportunities. Almost 25% of Pitt’s opportunities resulted in giving up the ball without getting a shot.

A lot of the focus has to be on the second half, since Pitt blew the lead and the game then. Yes, Georgetown started making a run near the end of the half to cut the lead to a more manageable size, but Pitt scored a total of 14 points in the first 19:30 of the second half, before a 9 point flurry in the final 30 made it close.

14 points. 5-20 shooting, before that final 3-4 spree. This is what all players who saw time in the second half did in that 19:30 :

Gray 0-4
Krauser 1-5 (1-1 in final :30)
Kendall 0-2
Ramon 2-4 (1-2 in final :30)
Fields 1-4 (1-1 in final :30)
DeGroat 1-1
Benjamin, Young and Graves 0-0

That’s frickin’ ugly shooting. 13 of the shot attempts came from the guards.

Interesting to me was how the bench for Pitt got a lot shorter in the second half. Graves, the object of much ire, saw only 3 minutes of action in the second half. Fields, DeGroat and Young both saw nearly the same amount of time in both halves (all got 1 extra minute in the second versus the first). Biggs never got off of the bench. Ramon, Krauser, Gray and Kendall all played at least 15 minutes each.

Looking at this, and with a little more time to reflect, it is clear that Georgetown made better adjustments in the second half. At the same time, the players for G-town responded and executed much better. Pitt did make attempts to adjust, but did not execute. Gray did not respond well to the double teams, and players did not come to help. Pitt did not get aggressive against the zone, instead moved the ball on the perimeter. No penetration.

Right now, I have some real concerns about the way Pitt is playing on the road in the Big East. They just are not shooting well away from the Pete. That has to be a concern for the BE and NCAA Tournaments. Right now, Pitt is lacking a high quality road win.