If there is one team that Pitt has inexplicably struggled against in recent years it’s St. John’s. After that, however, it would have to be Seton Hall. The Pirates are 3-3 against Pitt since 2003.
Seton Hall’s style has just seemed to be one that gives Pitt problems, or Pitt has had some bad injuries. This year, both apply. The Pirates like to pressure full court and are pesky. They are also a streaky shooting team.
So, I’ll be liveblogging, but also a fair amount of pacing and moving around and away from the computer. And drinking. Plenty of drinking.
The broadcast crew is John Sanders and Mike Jarvis. I am continually amazed that the Big East tolerates the employment of Jarvis in color commentary for their conference games. The coach who managed to do grievous longterm harm to one of the original BE teams in the largest media market. The fact that he isn’t a particularly good analyst is yet another strike against him.
Jim Burr is the Ref with Curtis Shaw and William Bush the officials for this game.
2:11: Pitt up 9-2. The Panthers look like they will be able to go inside at will on the Pirates. Seton Hall looks a lot less sure of themselves than they did against Marquette. Not getting defensive stops or set up their pressure hurts them.
Blair does have to remember to occasionally kick it back out if he gets an offensive rebound but moves too far from the basket. He invites the double-team on him and has no good shot. It’s something I’m sure he’ll learn.
Young looks hot. Benjamin with a couple dumb mistakes. A bad pass for a turnover and fastbreak opp for SHU and trying to go 1-3 when he had the ball.
2:24: Biggs early does nothing to improve his standing with most Pitt fans. He gets a rebound but tries to toss it up directly underneath the basket. No room to shoot, easy block. Then runs into Wanamaker on the other end as he doesn’t seem to know where he should be going.
Young definitely seems to be feeling it this afternoon. Blair already has 6 rebounds. Ramon has 3 assists and 0 turnovers. Under 12 minutes to the half, Pitt leads 13-9 with Young going to the foul line.
2:32: Pitt up 18-13 with under 8 minutes. Biggs with a couple nice short jumpers open in the middle of the zone. Benjamin not shooting well today. Seton Hall’s defense really picked up once a couple shots went down. Gave them time to set and it makes a huge difference for them.
2:40: Pitt up 23-19 Blair going to the line for a 1-and-1. 3:39 until halftime. Pitt just entered the bonus. Ramon hit a floater in the lane, which were the first points for any of the Pitt guards. Otherwise all the scoring is from Young, Blair and Biggs.
Neither team is shooting well. Eugene Harvey is the scary player against Pitt to me. A guard who drives to the basket constantly. Weak defender, but provides the Pirates with needed points.
2:50: Pitt up 33-30. Having seen the Pirates’ last two games against UConn and Marquette, I’m not shocked. In both games they were leading at the half, but just couldn’t keep it up.
Laing and Nutter played the full 20 for SHU. Ramon and Young both played 19 minutes.
Young and Laing each have 15 points respectively. After that, Eugene Harvey has 9 points that came late in the 1st half. Otherwise, not much else.
Pitt is little better. Only 3 other players have scored. Blair already has 9 rebounds along with 9 points.
Benjamin is having a horrible game. Very jarring after not only playing well most of the year, but absolutely stepping up the past two games.
3:22: The outside shot had been there for Pitt, but now Pitt is making them. Suddenly Pitt is up by 11 with just over 13 minutes left.
Seton Hall is still struggling with its scoring. Something that has been a noticeable problem the second they started Big East play.
3:33: Seton Hall has already used its last TO with over 8 minutes left. That is going to kill them. They have Laing sitting with an injury he got going for a steal. Pitt is up by 14. Threes raining for Pitt now. Just would like to see Wanamaker make one for his confidence.
Benjamin hot now. Actually the guards in general have looked great this half. A spread court will do that.
3:45: I want to thank Seton Hall for making it look like I know what I’m talking about. I said at the half that the Pirates fade in the second half. Boy, did they. The defense fell off tremendously. Offense was still lousy.
70-54 with 3:42 left and Blair coming to the line after the break.
Sam Young has a career high 25 points. Blair has double (14 boards) double (17 points). Ramon has 11 points and 8 assists — and only 1 turnover.
3:53: Mike Davis was once a Pitt commit, but struggled to finish high school — anywhere. Seton Hall took a chance on the guy (he’s no longer a kid), yet he is still raw and a project. He fouled out in only 10 minutes of time.
4:08: Hysterical. Maurice Polen with his first basket of the season and McGhee gets a block before time expires. An 84-70 win.
22 assists on 28 baskets for Pitt.
Sam Young had 28 points. 4-4 on 3s but 6-12 on FTs — go figure. Blair had 20 points and 14 boards. Tyrell Biggs had 10 rebounds and 8 points.
Ramon had 14 points and 8 assists. Benjamin came alive in the second half and with the free throws in the final seconds finished with 12 points, 6 assists, 3 steals and 5 turnovers.
Hail to PITT!
-al-
3 bad calls against us so far…the “held ball,” the foul on wannamaker (didn’t touch anyone), and the “offensive foul” on benjamin…other than those it hasn’t been called too poorly…
…good to see they just put blair back in the game…
Best way to beat a press is to press back. Bet Dixon wishes he had the horses to do it! !
Watching GT, Marquette and UConn guards on the other channels….we are in BIG trouble against them…
Hail to PITT!
-al-
Hail to PITT!
-al-
Been following the ESPN Gamecast…. Sam Young is 4 for 4 from three point land? Is that right? Holy balls!
And wait… how the hell did Seton Hall get 9 points in like 60 seconds? God I hate trying to follow ESPN gamecast!
Whats with the no call on the tackle of young?
Seriously?
I’m the first to concede that sarcasm doesn’t always translate well on the web, so maybe I missed the joke.
I’m sorry your free candy sucked.
I thought a post title that included the word “sporadic” was enough of a clue as to this particular liveblog.
Its a win, we have to win the ones we’re supposed to. Don’t know what else to say today…
Just refund Buzz the money he paid to view this site and call it a day…
I didn’t get to see any of the game, so maybe there was a good reason for it (SH playing small?), but that seems strange.
There’s no question we’re going to NEED McGhee to play some important minutes for us as the season goes on, so why not make it a point of getting him some minutes now when there’s less pressure so he can get experience and get comfortable.
Me no like, Jamie.
…why doens’t wordpress have an “ignore” feature? True freshman doesn’t get in every game and he’s gonna transfer? I can’t take it anymore…
That being said…
Jeff is exactly right. In my opinion, you have to get him minutes. Blair plays agressively AND he’s still a freshman. There WILL be another time when he’s not able to stay out of foul trouble. If he and someone like Biggs are BOTH in foul trouble, McGhee’s going to need to play significant minutes. The game was never out of hand really in Pitt’s favor, so I understand that they couldn’t play him a lot. But get him in in spurts…put him in a few minutes at a time and get him about 7-8 minutes a game.
I’m not saying that he’s going to repeat his success the other night - heck, I don’t even know if he’ll have another game like that all year. But chances are we’re going to need him. I hope there was a reason he didn’t play, but given that he got in late, I don’t know if that’s the case.
Start up your own blog if you don’t like this one. Chas is everthing that is good about Pitt. All you are is a bitter Yinzer that has nothing better to do but complain. Please don’t make me come up from Texas to kick your ass…you will rue the day.
Hail to Pitt
Andra CAS 92
Dude, I think I had a minor stroke when I read that. You’ve got to explain what you were trying to say there. Misspelling intelligent was a bonus.
He is Buzz’s greatest quote:
“I was just used to better blogging.I bet as the drinking took president the blogging took a back seat to the drinking.”
See, when ‘the drinking took President’ both Bush’s blogging sucked and his judgement went also, hence the War in Iraq.
If you are a long time reader you will know that Chas has two kids, one of which wasn’t too healthy as a newborn. Chas continued to do his best to blog, while obviously making his family his first priority. That’s commitment.
Before that a basement fire forced Chas and his young family out of their house for a lengthy period of time. He STILL did his best to blog and keep us informed.
Chas putting up a sporadic live blog was his way of posting an open thread, where he could post his thoughts on the game from time to time and we could comment away. To complain about that is nothing but a joke.
If Chas wants to toss back a few drinks on a Saturday (which I actually took as him joking) OR play around this house with his young family (which knowing Chas is a more likely scenario), while posting his thoughts intermittently, than that’s his prerogative. It takes nothing away from this site. Even if it did, we as readers would have ZERO room to complain.
This is the best Pitt site around. Better than the pay sites. Local writers, ESPN writers, etc. will even visit this place from time to time to stay informed on Pitt. I think Chas is doing a plenty good job.
Sure you are welcome to your opinion, but public opinions attacking good people for no reason will not be respected. And neither will you.
Chas, change nothing. Keep up the great work.
Why don’t you hang out with some Nitters on the State Penn blog if this blog isn’t good enough. You can read about what players have been added to the latest police report and speculate about how often Joe Pa dumps a day.
I can always bring a couch up from Texas, tie you to it and set it on fire.
Y’all have a good Lord’s day now. I’ll say a special prayer for you Buzz.
Excellent post. You said it better than anyone else on this site, myself included. There is no need for a personal attack on individuals and you kept it on a factual and professional level. Now, let’s move on to posting about the upcoming GT game.
http://www.championshipproductions.com/cgi-bin/champ/BD-02903.html?mv_pc=CP00025
I think we should make Buzz #2
anybody watching the gtown game tomorrow near philly, I’ll be at chammps in king of prussia.
For the $0.00 you paid to view this, a 979 word post isn’t too damn bad at all.
Chas has built the best Pitt site on the net. The reaction to news, recruiting, and games are better than anything else you’ll get.
I’ve been here a little over a year, and I’m thankful for Chas letting me join him here.
In my opinion, the commenters on Pitt Blather are some of the best of any blog anywhere. The quality and quantity of the comments are amazing — please don’t ruin that.
Would you got up to a Habitat for Humanity build site and tell one of the volunteer builders that are not building fast enough. No. You’d just be happy they were there.
Don’t forget Schmitt is gone also…..
Don’t feel like forking out money to scalp any tix for tomorrow night, but wouldn’t mind watching this particular game at a bar with other Pitt hoops fans instead of in my freaking living room being quiet so I don’t wake the kids!
