That’s exactly what this game was. Sure, Pitt had a horrible night (both by their own doing and some back luck) but Dayton — especially Roberts — played very well. Exceptionally well, maybe even reaching “unreal”. He finished with 31 points with 15 of those coming from three pointers, some of which were taken from very deep. It seemed like he couldn’t miss all game, but neither could any other UD players. They shot 52% from the field compared to Pitt’s 29%. Marcus Johnson (15) and Kurt Huelsman (12) also hit double figures. Add in the fact that they hit 22 of 28 free throws and out-rebounded us 41-34, even though coming into the game we were at +11 rebounds per game against our opponents.

That was the tip of the iceberg during a flat our horrible game for Pitt. Pitt settled for some of the worst shots I’ve ever seen a basketball team take. Tyrell Biggs is not a three point shooter, but that’s not what he seems to think. Sam Young is a forward too, but he threw up two treys. Ronald Ramon, who’s job is to hit a damn three, went 0-6. As a team, we were 3-25 from deep. Ouch.

Moving to DeJuan Blair, who came back down to Earth after a great game against Duke where I think a lot of people forgot he’s just a freshman. He picked up two fouls early, sat most of the first half, and had to play most of the second half with four fouls. This was the first really hostile environment he’s faced and he made plenty of “freshman mistakes”.

Back to Ronald Ramon though. Oh geez, Ronald Ramon. Ramon is basically worthless if he’s not going to hit threes, especially some of the wide open looks he got tonight. He’s a liability on defense and has no real speed or quickness. At 6-1 (6-4 with the hair) and 180 pounds, he definitely has no size and when Fields went out he looked lost while running the offense at PG. He misses hitting wide open players with passes because he lacks court vision and always seems like he’s a step behind everything else. Problem is, with Gil Brown and Keith Benjamin filling in for Mike Cook and Brad Wanamaker only a true freshman who needs some work, our options are limited and Ramon will continue to see the minutes.

As TMG says in the comments:

Ramon didn’t play tonight, but some walk on was using his jersey.

No, my 7 year-old brother isn’t even a walk-on yet. [/Ramon rant]

Of course, Ramon only played the point because of Field’s injury. Obviously it looked like a foot or ankle type of thing but it seems like no one has any real information. The AP report said nothing of value and the radio guys didn’t seem to know much either except it’s some type of sprain. The severity is the big question. Losing Cook for the season was bad, but losing Levance for an extended time (which hopefully isn’t the case) is just horrible. I know this debate has been going on for a while — Fields is one of the best point guards in the nation. He’s the man on this team.

None of the views ESPN had showed the actual injury but he backed into where the cheerleaders were sitting so a good guess would be he stepped on one of their feet or something. A bit surprising that ESPN only had three camera angles, since usually they have a camera to focus on every single player. I guess the other five hoops games plus three bowl games used up every resource the network has.

Lastly, with the way college basketball games are broadcast today, trying to fit them into a two hour time slot and hoping they don’t spill into the next game’s air time is not working anymore. Commercial breaks at every chance they can get (media time outs every four minutes) make the games run longer and longer. Add in the general rule of thumb that every minute of game time ends up translating into about two minutes of real time and a smaller number of games are going to fit into the time slot. Although it’ll never happen (having less teams play means fewer markets are interested), networks like ESPN should show fewer games but give them each a 2.5 hour window. [/ESPN rant. Two of those in one post — I need to cut back a little.]

To end this great night, Penn State won the Alamo Bowl. Still, the sky is not falling. We’re 10-1 and it’s just one non-con loss against a good team.