Kansas gets barely past SIU with a 61-58 win and now awaits the winner of Pitt-UCLA. One thing is certain, SIU HC Lowery is about to make more money. Either because he will get a nice raise from his alma mater or he will be snatched by another school.
9:53: Here we go.
10:02: Pitt down 8-4, 15:52 in the half. As expected, banging and tight. Mbah a Moute already forced to sit with 2 fouls. The Bruins are now bringing at least 2 guys at Gray with MaM out.
10:08: Good timeout by Graves. That was a good trap, and he didn’t try to do anything stupid.
10:20: Man, Pitt is not hitting shots, still only down 3.
10:35: Not making shots is starting to catch up with Pitt as halftime nears. UCLA is now bringing at least two — even three men — on Gray and daring Pitt to make an open jumper. It’s not happening right now. There won’t be any way for Gray to get chances if the shots aren’t being knocked down.
10:47: Pitt down 32-26. Hate to say it, but that’s good. Pitt shot horribly and only encouraged UCLA to gamble more on defense and make it harder on Pitt.
I think Young will have to play more in the second half, even if Kendall is better on defense. Pitt needs Young’s scoring more at the moment. They need penetrators and anyone else to help take the defense off of Gray. Fields and Ramon are at least taking care of the ball even if they aren’t providing much on offense.
UCLA is shooting better then Pitt and even out-rebounding them. The startling thing is that UCLA is turning the ball over more and fouled more.
Naturally, UCLA is hitting all of their FT shots.
11:12: AUUGGHHH!! How is Pitt making it that much harder by missing some of these shots? I’m trying to remain calm but that’s at least 2 lay-ins to start the second half that Pitt has managed to mangle.
11:25: Grife! I don’t know what to say. Pitt has shots. They are getting looks. They are simply missing them. I had hoped that the shots would start falling, but they still aren’t. Now you can see some of the players getting tighter when they have to shoot. Some players hesitating and others thinking they have to shoot right away. They are frustrated because they know the shots are there.
11:30: 5 points in almost 9 minutes?
11:52: Small run and then that was it. 3:27 UCLA up 54-42.
Nothing. I can’t believe the poor shooting. Pitt’s shooting has somehow managed to be worse in the second half then in the first.
12:09: 64-55 UCLA wins. Credit UCLA. They did it without getting the turnovers. They shot incredibly well on free throws. They out rebounded Pitt (it helps when Pitt misses that many shots on the defensive rebounds) and converted more open shots.
What can you say? Pitt got nothing inside. Gray only had 10 points and Kendall — while he had 3 assists — had 0 points. Young provided a brief spark with 9 points but on only 3-10 shooting. Cook hit 3-4 to start then was 0-5 the rest of the way.
Right now I’m very disappointed in the way they shot. The defense was sound. Good god, did they get open looks. They just shot like absolute crap.
It’s not just the guys inside. They had no chance to get free when most of the game the perimeter wasn’t doing much to help them loosen double teams.
Now it’s time for football and please don’t anyone start talking about a national title in football. Please don’t even think could happen for a second. I will be happy just getting to a bowl. Any bowl.
Getting past the sweet 16 would be great for recruiting, but there aren’t that many teams that even get to the sweet 16. We beat the lower seeds this year and lost to a higher seed. You can hope for an upset, but you can’t expect one. I wish we would have shot better tonight, including from the foul line, but I think we hung in there.
Aaron can’t blame anyone more than himself for not getting farther this season. Like I said, he needs better coaching for his position, but he also didn’t play with a tough mentality or (from what I can tell) train very hard since his junior year. This year seemed like he expected to just come out and dominate, and when he didn’t he just got flustered.
Al least they didn’t lose to Kent State or Bradley. (Marquette I can live with).
Congrats to the Women’s team for a great season.
Hail to Pitt!
I talked to some UCLA fans at the bar and they sounded a lot like Pitt fans in that they always feel like UCLA loses the big games. Their mentality is win a title or all is lost, whereas Pitt fans would have been delighted just to make to the Elite Eight.
As for Dixon, he’s won a lot with average talent. Four 20-win seasons and three BE Finals appearances is pretty damn good. Realistically this team would have had to play out of their minds to get to the Final Four and they just didn’t do it. I don’t see how Dixon can be blamed for his players missing so many close and open shots? If both teams shoot their averages from the free throw line, it’s a neck and neck game, which saying a lot since Pitt played like ass.
As for Gray, I too will be glad to see him go. I just have this nightmare that my NBA team, the Sixers, will draft him!!!
But instead, I’ll say this:
We fought the good fight, and it just wasn’t our game.
We’ll be back.
We may not be back. It’s not often you get one of the 10 best players in the country and we blew our chance. Hope I’m wrong, but it’s not going to be better for the next couple years. I’m pissed. We had our chance the last couple years and totally blew it. Of course, when your PF is, at 6’10, the biggest pussy in college basketball and your coach is clueless, these things happen. ARGGHHH
Lets be honest – I think everyone agrees that we’re not getting top shelf talent. There are a lot of reasons for it, and we could micro-analyze all of them to the brink of insanity, but it is what it is in the end. This year the had to fight the talent gap along with a lack of physicality that past Pitt teams used to make up for their talent shortcommings.
The question everyone has to ask themselves is: what level of success am I satisfied with? Its the big question the AD has to ask as well. The Sweet 16 isn’t mediocrity, Mediocrity is one or two games in the NIT each year, scratching out just-over-.500 seasons. Thats not what we have here. Are we satified with a Sweet 16 run every year? Maybe we are. Kentucky isn’t – they pushed Tubby out the door after he made a couple of deep runs and actually won a title (granted, that was 8 or so years ago…). but Kentucky has a much deeper tradition in basketball. Our basketball past is spotty at best and clearly pales in comparison. Do we set the bar that high anyway because we value achievment, or do we settle for a consistently good – but not great- team? There is no wrong answer here. Different people have different expectations. I don’t know where Long sits on the issue, and public comments like “commitement to winning” are just lip service BS that every AD conjurs up from time to time to keep the press at bay. How much are you willing to pay, who are you willing to potentially screw, and are you willing to make difficult decisions? Its a fine line – I’d rather have a good honest program and a crooked great one – but thats just me. Ultimately it will be Long and the rest of the admistration that decide how much winning is enough and what defines success/progress.
When Howland left, I didn’t want Dixon. I wanted a big name coaching talent if we could land one. I didn’t care if the guy only stayed 4-5 years – I wanted someone who could carry a surging program to the next level quickly with big talent. Its hard to reach the pinnacle in any sport, so my philosophy has been to ride the wave and get as far as you can as quickly as you can while you have the opportunity. Pitt as a program was a reasonably hot commodity at the time. Who knows – maybe we would have topped out at the Elite 8 level. That would have made a tangilbe difference in the recruiting level. Of course this is nothing more than philosophy and speculation – they could have ended up in the NIT or on probation – but that was the direction I wanted.
I still don’t think Dixon is a Final Four coach, and we may never know the answer because we may never attract Final Four talent. One thing is certain – its all on Dixon now. I don’t think there are ANY vestiges of Howland left at this point. The Howland-Dixon era is officially over – its now the Dixon era. The next 2-3 years should show us a lot about his ultimate potential. He has the ability to improve, just like anyone else. My only real fear is that the program gets stuck in a virtual rut, perhaps even tailing off a bit. At that point, when someone decides that they need to reset the bar, the program has lost some of its luster and top coaching interest has waned. No one wants to go back to the Paul Evans days – that much is certain.
Sorry.
