The game is at 1pm on CBS. It’s also a pretty good match-up.
Game worth watching on TV: The battle of teams down key players is Saturday in Hartford. It’s Pittsburgh minus Mike Cook and Levance Fields because of injuries vs. Connecticut minus Jerome Dyson because of a failed drug test that has earned him a 30-day suspension. So yeah, the game would be better if those guys were involved. But it’s still a great Big East matchup scheduled for CBS, and why wouldn’t you want to watch CBS?
Technically Jim Calhoun says he hasn’t decided whether Doug Wiggins will play. Right. He’s playing.
ESPN.com includes the non-ESPN game as a big weekend game.
Connecticut has one of the most explosive groups of athletes — led by guard A.J. Price and forward Stanley Robinson. Craig Austrie stepped up in the absence of Dyson and Wiggins and scored 15 points against Indiana. Center Hasheem Thabeet has steadily improved his offense to go along with his shot-blocking ability and overall defensive presence in the lane. Jeff Adrien is a dependable power forward who competes and provides consistent production in the lane as a scorer and rebounder. Despite losing to Rutgers at home this past Saturday, the Panthers beat Villanova on Wednesday. Pitt is short-handed with Levance Fields still out with a foot injury, but coach Jamie Dixon has shown he can rally the troops. The Iron Five of Gilbert Brown, Sam Young, DeJuan Blair, Keith Benjamin and Ronald Ramon should not be taken lightly, even on the road against a confident Connecticut team.
Good news, Seth Davis at SI.com picks UConn by 3.
So the question becomes, which team is better equipped to win a physical conference game with a thin bench? Well, Pitt out-rebounded Villanova by eight in its win on Wednesday night, but I doubt that will happen against UConn. My sense is the Huskies have turned the corner in terms of understanding how tough they need to be and how smart they need to play. That, plus the two days of additional rest and preparation they had this week after beating Louisville on Monday, should be the difference.
The extra days off for UConn seems to be a big advantage. The only thing I can sort of point out is that the Huskies played Indiana and Louisville on Saturday then Monday. Davis points out the team seems to have turned a corner. Contra that, they are still a young team and got a couple extra days to relax. They were rolling a bit, and now had a chance to rest.
Pitt, of course, is tired as they are finishing a 4-game in 10-day grind.
There are those times late in games when, admittedly, Biggs’ legs feel a bit like Jell-O, when his breathing becomes labored and his body is telling him to shut it down while his head wins a tussle as it screams to “keep on going, push through.”
Biggs harkens back to those semi-torturous offseason conditioning sessions when a moment like that arises.
“Just grinding it out in the summer and all that running we did on the track and all that stuff we did on the court, it definitely pays off right now,” Biggs said. “You can find yourself at the end of games with your wind going down and your legs feeling it some. But you just have to tell yourself to keep fighting, you don’t have any choice but to fight through it.”
I don’t have a strong sense on this game. I do expect some very ragged second half play from both teams.
All that said, here is why I still think Pitt wins. They show up against the good teams. DeJuan Blair, in particular, seems to understand how important it is for him to play well in big games, and he is good at coming through.
Hibbert couldn’t stop Blair, so I don’t see Thabeet being able to do so. To Thabeet’s credit, though, he is a much better player than last year. If he keeps improving like this, he will be a pretty solid player. But Blair will always out-pace him in progression because Blair is just naturally a solid player. Aside from the tendency to pick up cheap fouls, Blair plays like a junior or senior a lot of the time.
