Slow and steady wins the race. That may have been one of the most grinding 79-66 games I can remember. When you see a halftime score of 40-33, you think Pitt must have been running a bit. Instead, it was just good shooting. Pitt shot over 50% in both halves. They withstood runs, and kept scoring. Other than the final couple minutes Pitt’s longest stretch without scoring a point the entire game was a little under two minutes midway through the first half — when Pitt went from being up 22-17 to being tied 22 all. That was also the last time Pitt was tied or trailed the Bulls.
I think the big thing for most Pitt fans was Gary McGhee. I happened to watch the Monday edition of the Jamie Dixon Show of Panthers Weekly today. He said that McGhee and Diggs have been battling little injuries, but getting better and could expect them to be playing soon. To be honest, I assumed he was blowing a little smoke to excuse not playing Diggs and laying the groundwork to claim a medical redshirt for McGhee. Maybe not.
McGhee looked surprisingly good. I guess he has been coming along in practice. It helped that the Bulls were totally unprepared for him. They seemed to expect him to be a space and foul eater for Pitt. As such they ignored him on offense, which helped free him up for a couple easy baskets that really gave him confidence. After his second score, Doris Burke had a couple minutes to pour through her notes to observe that the Pitt coaches said regarding McGhee: “They say he’s more developed as a freshman than Aaron Gray was.”
Um, context please. Gray played practically no minutes as a freshman. Was completely raw and doughy. Talk about damning with faint praise. Gray came in as a project, not a McDonald’s All-American.
Late in the first half, Keith Benjamin began feeling it. By the 3:33 mark in the first half he had 11 of his 20 points.
Most of Pitt’s turnovers came in the 1st half. In this game, I don’t think Ramon was as big a culprit. I saw a lot of the early turnovers happen because the players are just not familiar enough with each other on the court. Spacing was off, Brown and Benjamin each had at least one turnover because they got too deep and there was no one where they assumed/expected to pass off the ball. Shockingly, Pitt only had 10 turnovers.
Holy crap, assists. Ramon had 7, Brown had 4 and Wanamaker and Benjamin each had 3.
Gilbert Brown looked a lot more confident in his shooting in this game and it translated to 10 points on 4-7 shooting (2-4 on 3s). Less tentative especially in the second half. Making a couple early baskets definitely encouraged him.
USF is an improving team, but they just aren’t good enough. It took a little longer, and the difference wasn’t as vast, but there was a lot in the way this game went that reminded me of what I saw from the Bulls in their loss to Syracuse on Saturday. They hung tight for the first 10 minutes or so, then started drifting off the pace. A couple minor runs to make it look like they might challenge; but then fading out. The major difference was that USF shot pitifully at the Carrier Dome, unlike tonight.
Something for Coach Dixon and the assistants to work with the players on. Not getting burned on screens. For the last 4 games, I have been seeing a lot of single, double and even triple screens being run against Pitt to free up shooters. Maybe some more of the 2-3 zone will help, but it seems to me that teams are really using the screen against Pitt’s man defense a lot more. And quite effectively.
The biggest frustration is Biggs. He is so freaking timid and just loses his head on D. It’s maddening to watch.
I know he’s a freshman, but Blair has got to play smarter. He isn’t doing anybody any good with his ass on the pine. I appreciate his enthusiasm, but he tries to do too much. If he wants to be aggressive on D, he needs to save it for the second half.
Young and Benjamin are studs.
Hate to admit it, but I liked the zone and it worked. Carmen, you’re right about Blair. He’s the LeSean McCoy of bball but he makes freshman fouls. He’ll learn with experience.
If Fields’ fracture is in the shaft of the bone, which I heard it was, he should be back on the shorter end of 8-12 weeks. Plus, it’s a very easy rehab.
I have always like benjamin for his unselfishness and ability to score….its only now he is getting some solid PT and becoming a solid attribute to the team…….
As someone mentioned in the other thread..if we can get fields back in late february, it will be a solid lineup of fields, benjamin, brown, young, blair with ramon leading the bench guys….im very excited for this possibility……
As far as last night..any BE road win is huge this year..road teams are only 5-15 in BE this year..and that includes two wins by GT at Depaul and at Rutgers. Which also means Sat’s game is pretty much a must win for Panthers if they want to stay near the top of the BE.
As an aside, while I’d like to see Blair get more touches, I do think he needs to work on shot selection. He sometimes puts himself in poor position and then throws up a prayer. Luckily for us he’s athletic enough to get away with it. But he could be so much more effective. Give him time.
One other aside. I would have liked to see Pitt take the ball at Gansberry more. He obviously killed us. One way to counteract that would be to get him in foul trouble. I don’t think he’s a great defender.
