Well, I hope the next coach at Providence proves to be as much a patsy for Pitt as Tim Welsh’s Friars. 10 years, and getting lucky with Ryan Gomes to show for it. Even then, they were one-and-done. A team that has no fundamentals. They just shoot. I can’t even respect them.

That said, I always worry. This team did beat UConn in Hartford because they were incredible from outside in that game. Always a fear. Great work on the liveblog Dennis. I have to say, though, if they had upset Pitt, Dennis would have been banned from basketball liveblogging at the very least in games with supposed patsy teams. No, I’m not blaming him for the Rutgers loss, but that would have been an unsettling trend.

Pitt won 82-63, and it was nice to get an easy win after so many stressful ones.
Not much to say about this game.

Pitt was a little lazy to start the game on the perimeter. Providence made them pay. Right away, though, it was clear how sloppy a team Providence is. They can shoot and run up and down. They have no defense and they don’t even pass real well.

In the first half, that style was clearly tempting the Pitt players. Pitt just wanted to run around as well. It is fun, but it meant Pitt got lazy on defense trying to outscore the Friars.

The good in the first half: Pitt was 18-32 (3-8 on 3s). Only 3 turnovers and 13 assists. Shockingly Blair had 0 rebounds in the first half. This was Young’s kind of game with the running.

Pitt also got Providence to commit 8  turnovers — okay, the Friars helped on several.

The bad in the first half: Providence shot 15-26 (5-11 on 3s). Lazy defensive effort. A bit of gambling on steals — because it was more fun — but gave up easy baskets.

In the second half, clearly the team got the message from Coach Dixon that they can play offense, but not at the expense of poor defensive effort. The Panthers went on a 21-4 run to make a 5 point halftime lead, a 22 point walk to the end.

It also helped that Providence was extremely streaky in their 3-point shooting. They were hot for the first 5 minutes and hot for the final 5 minutes. It was that other 30 minutes that killed them. The Friars finished 9-22 on 3s.

Pitt by contrast shot 5-11 on 3s, with Ramon making all 5 on 7 attempts. Between the poor Providence defense and some confidence by Ramon, he looked fantastic. He finished with 15 points, 6 assists, 2 steals and 2 turnovers.

Heck, probably the best thing about this game was that it was a confidence booster for the whole team on offense (well, maybe not Gilbert Brown’s perimeter shooting — but even he had good with 4-4 on free throws).

On the post-game interviews. Naturally Dixon wouldn’t give anything about whether Fields will play on Friday at Marquette: “it’s day-to-day.”

Sam Young’s interview amused the hell out of me. He actually cracked a smile. I really don’t know how easy it is to tell when he is pouting, and when it is his normal expression. He seems to have a naturally dour look. Plus his body language generally pushes a sense of discomfort. He kept hunching forward.

I could probably do a lengthy post on how bad a color analyst Mike Jarvis is, but his post-game interview was even worse. In doing some highlights with Young there, Jarvis actually said to Sam Young that he looks just as happy to make a good pass as he is scoring.

Sam Young just looked confused. Like he couldn’t even believe there was a comparison of the two. He didn’t actually answer with a yes to skip past the inane, softball question. He just kind of moved away from the question. Even Young couldn’t buy into that.