Half-hour to game time.
7:40: 8-4 Pitt, Graves heading to the line fouled with 15:52 in the half. Good energy from Pitt. Thrilled to see more than just Gray getting after the offensive boards.
7:50: Pitt leading 12-4 11:51 left. Sam Young is looking very good on both ends tonight. WVU’s shots aren’t falling — right now. Need to build up the lead because they will start falling, and with the 3, they can catch up really fast.
7:56: Pitt now up 16-7. Pitt is running more to keep WVU out of their 1-3-1 and it is working. Part of the reason why Sam Young is looking so good in this game, as well.
8:01: Pitt up 18-10, 7:34 to half. Gray better adjust to the fact that he won’t get a call tonight. The refs are not giving the inside players anything.
8:14: A bad gamble on defense let Alexander score and fire up the crowd a bit. Pitt still leads 25-14 with 2:21 to the half. WVU is still struggling with their perimeter shooting.
8:19: Pitt leads 27-17 at the half. Graves had a nice drive to the hoop, but the defense didn’t give and the shot couldn’t fall to end the half. The Mountaineers only shot 3-16 on 3s and 3-9 elsewhere. They are taking — even for them — too many 3s. Pitt has struggled going 0-4 from outside, but not taking many 3s has limited that. Otherwise, Pitt has shot 12-19 from the rest of the field.
Sam Young has 8 points on 4-5 shooting and a bunch of rebounds. Gray and Graves each have 6.
Da’Sean Butler has been the only thing working for WVU. 8 points and 2-3 on threes.
8:43: Here comes the Hoopie run as Frank Young scores 5 points in a 7-2 spurt to close it to 7 points. 16:14 in the game. Gray bricked 2 free throws.
8:52: Sam Young is having his best game ever. 16 points and crashing the boards. Frank Young has cramped up.
Pitt now up 37-24 with 13:52 left. Mike Cook made a sweet little pass out of the double team for Young’s slam.
9:00: 11:20 left Pitt up 41-26. Pitt is playing a solid team game. They are feeding the hot hand — Sam Young. The defense isn’t letting up. This is such a solid game.
Georgetown just put away Louisville 73-65.
9:09: Pitt up 49-33 with 7:13 in the game. Ramon has drilled a couple 3s. The only negative in this game has been Gray not hitting any free throws.
9:18: WVU has gotten hot and like any young team, when their offense starts working, they get more intense on defense. That’s the short answer how they went on a 14-3 run to get it to 49-45 before Sam Young hit a big 3.
Then dumb mistake when Ramon and Young both went for a rebound that let Frank Young grab it and get fouled and heading to the line after the break.
3:35 left, Pitt up 52-45.
9:27: And that was it for WVU. Frank Young missed his FTs. Pitt continued the run and Gray dropped 2 FTs and now Ramon has hit 4 straight FTs. Â WVU finally scored to snap an 11-0 run by Pitt.
Pitt withstood a couple hot streaks from WVU — never panicked and adjusted.
60-47 Pitt wins.
Sam Young had 21 points and 7 rebounds. Definitely a career night.
Gray finished with a 14-9 points-rebounds. The team shot 24-43, and held WVU to 16-50 shooting.
Unrelated to the WVU game, is anyone here going to the Pitt-Georgetown game in a few weeks?
Some things that stuck out to me:
1. Cook had another bad game in my opinion…haven’t seen the box score yet, but don’t think he did well.
2. If Young plays even half as well as he did tonight, then that makes us so much better as a team.
Pitt is winning and, I think, playing some really good basketball. But it would be a huge bonus once we get to the tournament if Cook, who it appears can be a solid scorer, would do the kind of things he needs to do to be a real offensive contributor. Against the top quality teams, we’ll need everybody to really be at the top of their games.
Cook does look confused/lackadasical at times and he as for several games now. Why he insists on taking it inside against multiple defenders when recently it has been opposing teams MO to collapse on him is beyond me. Also his lackadasical passing at times leads to TOs. He needs to quit trying so hard and let the game come to him and work off the ball to get better open shots.
Young has the potential to do what he did last night on a consistent basis if he keeps his head in the game, let the game come to him, and most importantly is given a chance to get signigicant minutes. Also, while he seems to excel at the 4, his futrue is at the 3 and once he gets that down he will a BEAST in the Big East!
Was it me or did Kenndall’s driving to the hole seem to come from Young doing so well?
To answer your question about WVU, it was a little bit of both. The defense was again very solid, but they missed a bunch of good clean looks. They got hot with a few minutes left and got within 4 (I think).
Pitt had a 10 point lead at the half, but WVU shot very poorly. Not sure what the FG% was, but they shot 32% for the game and it looked like they shot better in the 2nd half, so obviously it wasn’t very good.
Not saying our defense had nothing to do with it – they played above average defense and contested many shots. But Gray got pulled out to the 3-point line on more than one occasion and when he did that, he got burned.
If WVU even shoots decently, it’s a much closer game (as evidenced by the hot streak they went on late in the 2nd half when they pulled to four).
One last point – we turned the ball over 16 times and also only forced 9. So while the defense played well as far as contesting shots, we weren’t able to get them to play sloppy.
WVU got back into the game as soon as Kendall stepped on to the floor. WVU is a horrible match-up for him and it showed. I think our sloppy play down the stretch had more to do with WVU getting back into the game.
Sam and Frank Young both went into Bucky’s head and got conjealed into one potent basketball player. Of course, this is the same guy who after the Syracuse game said Fields had scored 20 against the team WVU had just played.
The defense definitely played well and most of the shots were well guarded, but WVU had a downright miserable shooting night. I can’t believe that 32% from the field was due ALL in part to our defense.
One prime example was the blown layup by WVU that I think would have cut it to two. Most of the 3 point shots were contested, but they did manage to get some clean looks, too.
Not to look too far into it because it’s a moot point, but if they make that layup, Pitt would have only been up by two. If I remember correctly, Young then hit that big three soon. If that’s the case, then maybe Pitt, up only two, doesn’t take that shot.
Again, I don’t want to read that far ahead because WVU can’t turn back time. But it was a very big turning point in my opinion.
Now let’s just enjoy the victory and hope it gives our guys some momentum for this home stand!
