After this G-town-‘Nova game, it should be interesting.
2:13: Pitt trails 9-7, 14:52 to the half and Cook heading to the line. Washington has a good start. Hate to sound like sour grapes, but at least 2 of their shots looked like junk going up, but just fell. Pitt looks decent. Like what I’m seeing defensively so far.
2:22: Frustrating on the offensive side. The guards just are struggling with teams playing tight on them on the perimeter. Clearly, no respect for them to take them off the dribble. If Ramon, Fields, Benjamin and even Graves refuse to drive inside, there’s no reason not to play up on them. Washington can risk doing it, despite not necessarily having quick guards because of the size inside.
2:37: In case you are wondering, Sam Young played barely more than a minute before picking up 2 fouls. Like what I’ve seen from Cook in this half. He’s played good defense and is the only one scoring. Gray is shying from contact on offense. Just don’t understand that. He usually responds to the chance to go straight at an opposing big man.
5:47 left, 23-18 Washington.
3:00: Pitt leads at the half 31-28. Hasn’t been pretty at times, but Pitt survived a bad start to get the lead. Cook really kept Pitt in the game early. He has 10 points. Naturally the guards for Washington showed up for this game. Huskies shot 4-6 on 3s. Pitt only 2-8. Pitt struggling on the rebounds — on both sides.
Pitt only shot 9-27, but they have gotten Washington to be sloppy — 10 Husky turnovers, Pitt threw away 4 early but none the rest of the way. Plus, Pitt did finally get the memo about aggressive to the basket — or at least Fields did. The team has already shot 13 FTs (11-13 and Fields was 6-6).
3:15: I can’t believe some of the shots Pitt is managing to miss. The irrational part of my mind is hoping that this will balance out with some stuff that will go down later in a game Pitt needs (not that this is some sort of payback for shots earlier in the year). Pitt leads 39-37.
Gray took a shot to the face getting the rebound, but no call.
3:24: Scary thing. Cook and Young are the only Pitt players with more than a single basket at this point. That seems impossible. 45-45, 11:09 in the game.
3:33: Sean McDonough used to be good as a play caller. Maybe he’s having an off game. Maybe it’s because he’s paired with Wenzel. He is doing poorly with this game. Missing players, not seeing plays and just not calling the action.
3:48: Considering how poorly Pitt is shooting, it’s astounding that Pitt is winning. If they hold on, it will be on the defensive effort.
4:02: So, Pitt wins while being out-rebounded and poor 3-point shooting and not exactly great shooting overall? Instead they get the win with free throw shooting and getting a slew of turnovers from the other team.
A 65-61 win. I’ll take it.
looks like florida is going down too
A few things:
1. How does your senior front line (PF & C) shoot 4-16 at home?
2. The three-point shooting is also drying up a little it seems. We all knew they couldn’t keep up the high percentage they had to start the season, but they shot 12-49 (24%) over the past three games – all of which have been tough for Pitt.
3. Shooting the ball the way they did, it’s a good thing they only turned the ball over six times…that clearly could have been a loss today.
4. I found it odd that after the poor shooting night, Gray only got seven shots off today. His opponent, the freshman Hawes, had twice as many shots as Gray did. As I’ve said repeatedly, I think Gray needs to get more shots. He gets a lot of balls thrown to him and he’s done a good job at finding the open man when double-teamed. But he doesn’t seem to be able to create his own shot very often in the paint. If he can’t do it, then he can’t do it. It just would be nice if he could a little more.
To me, we’ve got depth at every position other than center:
PG – Fields / Ramon (though Ramon is known more for his shooting than ball handling, he can play there).
SG – Graves / Ramon
SF – Cook / Benjamin
PF – Kendall / Young / Biggs
C – Gray
Kendall and Biggs can both play backup center, but if we lose Gray at that spot, we’d be playing smaller.
Let’s hope its not severe. In the meantime, I think our players will enjoy this win even though it was far from pretty. Confidence booster is exactly what we needed.
I haven’t heard much. In the recap on ESPN.com, Fields and someone else (Graves?) said they expected Gray to play on Monday. But Dixon sounded less optimistic. He thinks this injury is worse than the other ankle problems he’s had.
To be honest, I hope they don’t play him unless he’s completely healthy. We should be able to win against Seton Hall (even on the road and without Gray), so I’d like to see what they can do without him.
Sam Young at 6’6 215 will have problems at the 4. Take Florida for example since they lost, they play a 6’10 and 6’11 up front, both at 230+. I don’t doubt that young can play the 4 spot but that’s not natural for him because he’s a SF. Young is great driving to the basket and when he gets on a roll he will be good but he is not going to muscle anyone out of the way. G’town plays 7’2 Hibbert which will be Gray’s main target and then 6’9 or 6’10 Jeff green and/or 6’8/6’9 Summers … Young would not be able to move those 3 period. He at best will provide some type of support but it’s a bit of mismatch. The game monday at Seton Hall would be ok for Young to play the 4 more than usual because they don’t have the height.
Yes we all know that young has played the PF position but he is at his best when a PF and a C can move people out of the way so he can slash inside for an easy 2. That’s why I say next season will be better because we will have more bodies to make a mess inside.
And if you count 2 free throws as a made basket the shooting percentage should be much better.
Love to see Ramon giving the pump fake from 3 and coming inside a little. He starts doing that more often, and the 3s will start opening up.
Thank you, Mike Cook, for bringing your intensity tonight AND for making quick decisions on the perimeter instead of holding the ball for 4-5 seconds.
Took care of the ball in the second half and got it done. Not the performance I was hoping for, but that was a needed win. Hopefully Gray’s injury is minor.
I realize that Sam is definitely undersized for a PF…heck, if he were a better shooter, he could even pass for a big two-guard.
I understand what you meant now – you were talking more in terms of size. But even though Young should be playing the 3, I don’t count him as a SF because he doesn’t play that spot on the floor.
When he plays, we’ll definitely always be giving up height in that spot, but we also gain some things (Sam is quicker than most 4s, he drags them out a little bit because he can shoot jumpers, etc. But no question, he’s a liability defensively just because of his size.
Final point about next year’s front-line situation. Yes, we’ve got 2-3 guys that are about 6’10” – 7’0″ (Austin Wallace, Cassin Diggs, and Gary McGhee). But all of those guys are greener than my front lawn. I think Diggs is a JUCO transfer, so he might be the most ready…but from what I hear, he’s also probably got the least potential out of the group. Hopefully Austin is getting a lot of experience in practice.
Two of those guys will get significant minutes and one will start (assuming Dixon doesn’t go super small and start Biggs. The starting lineup in my mind would look like:
C – Diggs, Wallace, or McGhee (one of these guys would also serve as the backup C or PF)
PF – Young
SF – Cook
SG – Ramon
PG – Fields
Hopefully those guys will be more ready to step in and at least fit in the flow of the offense. The good news is that they won’t need to be contributing a whole lot right away as the other four in the lineup are big contributors right now.
We also will have DeJuan Blair, but at 6’7″, he’d again be an undersized PF if he plays that position.
I go back to one of Dokish’s well-made points about Pitt weaknesses. This team just isn’t that talented offensively. Cook is the only offensive upgrade we see this year, and we all know he’s inconsistent at best.
Don’t know if anybody watched BC and UNC last night, but it was nice to watch some talented players battle it out. Lawson and Rice had a war at point guard, playing at a level that Fields can only aspire to……
Hope Gray recovers quickly; we’re Top 15 with him and unranked without him.
Blair is going to be amazing. In his case he makes up for the lack of size.
Your lineup is very possible because it’s very athletic but I would go this route:
C- Diggs(starter) McGhee
PF – Blair(eventually starting if he qualifies) , Wallace
SF – Young, Dodson, Cook
SG – Ramon(starter), Benjamin, Brown, Wannamaker
PG – Fields(starter)
Biggs I don’t know where he fits…I would place him at SF and PF. I think the only starters for next season that are certain are Diggs and Fields. As for Young and others, you have to place them at the 4 because our PF(Kendall) can’t score and has happy hands getting him in foul trouble often. Anyways, next years team wont have as many holes as we do now so you can place people back into their natural positions. But yeah, I can see why people like Young at the 4…hehe, it’s because he can score and be a pest. Nice rebound for him at the end of the game, he almost broke his back getting it.
I don’t think that lineup is terrible – in fact, I think it might be close to that by the end of the season. But given Dixon’s history with playing guys that have been in the system for a while, I don’t think Cook is going to be playing a backup role next season – especially with Kendall out of the picture.
The lineup you had might eventually work out, but I can’t see Dixon playing four new guys at starting/backup center and power forward – especially when he’s got veterans in Cook and Biggs on the bench. Granted, I’m not the biggest Biggs fan – I just think it’s how it’ll turn out. I think we’ll see one new starter at center and then Young still at PF splitting time with Blair. If they move Young back to the 3 where he’s struggled so much, I’d be completely shocked.
Even though Blair is probably going to be great, I still think Young starts ahead of him because of Dixon’s history (ala John DeGroat in the past).
Furthermore Pitt consistently used to pound on BC when they were in the Big East and they have no players that are more talented than Pitt’s. You are smoking something if you think they are a more talented team than Pitt.
If you don’t think Jamie Dixon would trade any of his 2-man or 3-man players for Dudley and Marshall, well, that’s funny. Jamie would hop on that opportunity and not look back.
I played a few times with Akida McClain this summer and he’s more talented than most of what Jamie’s working with…….and he has struggled to get time at BC the last couple yrs, so that should tell you something.
Whether the players developed under college tutelage or came in heralded, my point remains the same. I’d like to see Dixon be able to put a team on the floor with some offensive upside……guys at the 2/3/4 who are real threats to score in bunches. I’m as happy as anybody with Pitt’s record, but I do think they’re overachieving but can’t get past the feeling that the other shoe is about to drop………..probably in the form of a tournament game against a more talented opponent. I also want to believe all the hype about Blair, Wanamaker, Dodson etc. etc. coming in, but I’m seasoned enough to never buy into the recruiting hype.
