VCU’s upset over Duke has been chronicled all over the internet and TV for the last 8 hours. From what I saw and what you probably already know, they can beat Pitt. Conversely, Pitt can beat them. From what I saw, here’s a bit of a scouting report for you all out there.
— They play a great high tempo defense. Combining a nice full court press with a nice half court trap is one of their calling cards. At times I felt we were sloppy on the offensive side of the ball. Maybe it was because we got into that popular Pitt thought process that “we’re the higher seed so we don’t need to worry”. If we do the same thing against VCU they’re going to make us pay with those defensive strategies.
ESPN’s team page for the Rams tells us how to beat a team like this.
Will Lose When …
Teams are able to handle the VCU traps all over the court and slow the tempo of the game. If the Rams can’t create turnovers off their pressure, their offense can become stagnant.
Yup, that pretty much sounds like how it needs to go for Pitt. Now as for how it actually WILL go…
— Eric Maynor feels no pressure. He is their main man when it comes down to the end of a tight game. If you need to see it in video form, click here to watch the Eric Maynor Show.
He’s not even their leading scorer this year though. B.A. Walker leads with 14.6 per game, Maynor with 13.9, and followed by Jesse Pellot-Rosa with 13.1.
—They play pretty physically for a guard dominated team. None of the three guards mentioned above are afraid to get a little bruised up both on offense and defense. This Pitt team doesn’t have the toughness of past teams so this could be something to watch for. Chances are also that someone from either team will get a little bloody. There were 3-4 times when players from both teams had to leave the game to get some blood cleaned up.
–Wil Fameni might be prone to doing this. He is going to be starting at one of the forward positions and picking up 4, 4, 3, and 5 fouls in the last four games could leave us matching up someone like Mike Cook, Levon Kendall, or Sam Young on him in foul trouble or his lesser talented backup.
–All of America will be rooting against us. If you’re trying to find the way it affects the game, not only will VCU fans be vocal for their team but so will fans from Maryland and Butler who play in the game before and end up sticking around.
Anyways, tomorrow’s game is slated for a 5:50 tip so expect something 10-20 minutes later that originally planned.
However, a warning to all, there will be times when you will want to break your TV watching Fields and Co. play stupid.
Key to the game is whether Pitt can throw over the press. Jamie has worked non stop on this.
If Pitt keeps inbounding into the open corner where there is always a double team or tries to beat the press one/one we will lose this game.
Let’s put this team away early and get ready for Indiana!!
Go Pitt!
link to sports.espn.go.com
We are going to be ready for this, this isn’t going to be a repeat of Bradley, right? Right?
How did we get stuck in this position? Couldn’t we just have a normal tournament? Instead we got half the people telling them they’re going to the final four, the other half writing bulletin board material for them.
I can’t believe this is true, but we would have been much better off playing douche.
Hopefully we go out there, stomp them, and never let up. Play like a top big east team, not a gutter sucking all criminal conference team.