— Syracuse completely handed us that game, but I think it should give our players plenty of confidence. We put ourselves into a deep hole and, with much help, pulled out of it. According to the SU blog from the Post-Standard, Pitt outscored the Orange 18-2 in the last three and a half minutes. That said, even with Syracuse choking, it should be noted the Pitt players never gave up.
— It was easy to tell the exact moment where SU decided to play the clock management game; obviously not the best decision of Jim Boeheim’s career. Apparently his players took “kill the clock” to mean “sit on the ball for 30 seconds then rush for a crappy shot in the last 5 seconds you have”. Whoops. It didn’t help the Pitt shooters started to get hot, relative to how they had been the previous 37 minutes.
— You know you found yourself laughing after Boeheim got T’d up.
— Pending a run into Friday and Saturday of the Big East Tournament, we likely knocked the Orangemen into the NIT.
— Don’t try to pile all of our frustration on the refs. Sure we get called for a lot of fouls, but many of them were actual, true fouls. Reaching in, hitting a driving shooter on the hand, etc. The most likely cause of this is the fact that Syracuse and other teams have such an easy time driving to the hoop. Once you get beat as a man-to-man defender, your last chance to stop an easy layup is to foul.
— Not that we had a huge amount of turnovers today but it was still frustrating the way many of them came. Our guards not connecting a pass to another guard and the ball going out of bounds (Fields, Ramon, Brown, and Benjamin are all somewhat guilty of this), and other stupid things. Some turnovers are acceptable, but four or five of the ones we saw against the Orange were stupid,
— Is our full-court press really that good or was Syracuse just that bad at breaking it?
— The possession in the last 25 seconds where Brown went deep into the corner and threw up a bad shot was probably the worst thing that could have happened at that point. Simply put, against a 2-3 zone you attack the red areas and stay away from the black.
…more on the defense later….
great observation, TMGPanther (In: LiveBlog: Pitt-Syracuse). I felt the same pride watching Dixon’s post-game conference; class act, indeed.
And then Ramon – he plays like shit for most of the day on D. Then, the second to last play, he plays AMAZING D – denies his man the ball over and over again, is in perfect position to steal a pass to his man, and when his man finally does get the ball, he’s so far away and the clock is so far down he has to put up a wild, shitty deep 3. Perfect D. It seems the rest of the time, he’s just standing around and resting, waiting for his man to blow by him.
Blair also had a great hedge and recover to deflect a ball off his man out of bounds to get a TO. At the same time he had one where he let his man roll to the basket unimpeded for a dunk. And where the hell was the help from the PF?
The inconsistency is brutal to watch. Nothings changed from the last 4 games. Our offense is fine, but our D (save for a few glimpses of greatness in this last game) continues to be awful. More practice please.
“It’s the most disappointing game I’ve ever been involved with,” he said.’
NIT….NIT…..NIT…..
Huge win today. I am glad Jimmy B says this is his most disappointing loss as a college basketball coach. There is nothing that makes me happier than seeing him or Calhoun upset. Or Huggy Bear failing a field sobriety test.
Bilas claims “A foul at the beginning of the game is a foul a the end of the game.” Well, why are we focusing on a single play and not the bigger picture? Probably because it makes “better” TV.
ESPN is a joke in terms of journalism. They’ve become one of the rings in the cirucs. This is what happens when one entity (ESPN/Disney) makes an effort to choke out all competition. Sure, ESPN is the world leader in sports “coverage.” It’s just that the coverage sucks.
Have I been mislead all these years?
“What are the Zebra’s doing? Taking the kid and putting him on the bench two minutes into the game?”
Which is it ESPN? Let them play or call the fouls as they occur? I don’t know why this is irking me so much. But it is…
Have I been mislead all these years?”
Foul line: yes (as illustrated in the post).
Baseline: no, the zone will easily trap you down there (as seen during the game).
no, Jaime’s my bitch. He can keep dishing it. I like it!
