Every body ready? There may be some gaps as I try to duck parental responsibilities to yell obscenities at the TV.
7:05: sloppy. You expect that to some extent from WVU on senior night early. But Pitt?
7:08: I know Smalligan is a senior in his last game, but they do have to call his fouls.
7:12: 13-9 highlights then Ramon burying the 3. Good times.
7:19: Nichols heading to the bench with 2 fouls. I’m shocked. This looks like a game where the officials will be whistling in favor of the home team.
7:25: Gilbert Brown playing with a lot more confidence and aggressiveness.
7:29: The Mountaineers are really going at Pitt’s guards inside. Getting the calls.
7:39: I can see Dixon getting a tech in this game with the way it is being called.
7:44: Unbelievable. I spend all season keeping cool about the refs. Trying to give them the benefit of the doubt — as long as there is some consistency and it isn’t too blatant in the homecourt sway. This one, though is killing me. Every aggressive move to the basket gets a foul called on the defense. Then it changes. Fields called for an offensive foul driving to the hoop.
29-25 WVU with 3:41 to halftime.
8:01: It’s halftime. Pitt trails 40-30.
Good news, Pitt has only attempted 4 3s. Bad news, they still haven’t made one.
Major foul issues in the first half. Blair, Ramon and Young with 2 fouls. Brown has 3. Astoundingly it is 12-11 in foul calls. Of course WVU has its foul calls a bit more diffused. I still haven’t figured out how the refs are calling this game.
Pitt’s bigger problem has been turning the ball over. 10 turnovers in the first half. Fewer opportunities for Pitt.
Despite being down 10, Pitt can take the second half. Blair has to stay out of foul trouble, though, and a couple 3s have to be knocked down. Not to mention make those easy buckets inside — go up stronger.
8:15: That isn’t exactly the start to the second half Pitt needed. Missing shots, Blair with a dumb offensive foul on a pick (late whistle, but it was a foul), too aggressive on defense leaving the WVU players with easy looks after a simple fake.
Now down 45-30.
8:20: The Pitt players are visibly frustrated. Dixon is going to have to use up all the timeouts in the first 5 minutes.
8:31: I don’t think I’ve ever seen spurtability in foul calling. They call several on Pitt. Then a few on WVU.
Joe Alexander is killing it tonight for WVU.
…and what the hell is going on? Those are some POOR ASS inbounds passes….throw it ALL THE WAY into the backcourt…we’ve had 2 TOs cause of stupidity like that, and trying to force crappy passes into the post…very unlike us.
At least the D hasn’t been awful.
They’re definitely getting away with more action rebounding than we are….how did we get so lucky to have both Higgins and Burr in one game?
Well, thats all for Ramon. Time to sit til second half.
And i don’t want to hear any of that bullshit…he SHOVED young in the back to clear out the space to go “straight up”….
I guess letting them shoot 50% isn’t too good either…or that they’re 4-12 from 3, and we’ve only taken 4, and missed em all…
We’re not doing any of these things in this game. We can complain about the refs all we want, but this game is there for the taking. We’re just not playing fundamentally sound enough to capitalize.
Here’s hoping we come out more focused in the second half. Of course, I’ve been saying that a lot lately.
…nice basket by Young.
And why are we not better at defending the slip screen after getting abused by Marquette. That’s ridiculous.
Break on the other end with the WVU charge. That was a bad call.
Are we trying for an even more amazing comeback?
Trouble rebounding AGAIN.
Awful defense AGAIN.
Opponent’s stud dropping a career (close to it) game on Pitt AGAIN.
Shit - Pitt’s defense was so awful Dixon spent a large portion of the game in zone. When’s the last time Pitt played a significant amount of zone? Can we REALLY not stop guys off the ball? Ahh…sadly, I have to say YEAH.
I mean…look at the last few wins…arguably should have lost to WVU at home. Beat a crap Providence team. Beat a crap Cincy team (in an ugly game that they had to come back in) at home. Got SUPER lucky against Syracuse. The wins look ugly or lucky. Lumped in there are a few losses where Pitt got outright dominated: L’ville (they were never going to win that game), ND, Marquette and tonight.
I mean…this is exasperating. I know this team has had a ton of injuries and they’re worn down and it was a tough game on the road…but this team had regressed SEVERLY since…wait, really, it’s been a slow, steady erosion since the Duke game. They’ve shown no reason to think they can fix their flaws in the upcoming post-season.
I hate to say it - but they’re straight fucked. They’re dead men walking. And I have a hotel booked for Weds. - Sat. in NYC next week. Shit.
Honestly? I have no idea whats up with this team. Seems to to be a mental problem. They are told how to play D - they just look lost half the time…
Once again, its our D that lets us down…i can’t wait until they get that turned around…
But watching this team as closely as all of you do….I’m the only one who thinks they’re screwed? “Pitt’s defense has only been bad the past 7-8 games…” Uhm - THAT’S A LONG TIME. And, IT’S THE END OF THE SEASON WHEN YOU NEED TO PEAK, NOT FALL APART.
Sorry, boys - get ‘em a body bag. Pitt’s cooked. I can’t help but wonder if it would have been different if Cook didn’t get hurt…I actually thought splitting minutes with Gil Brown and KB was an upgrade at the time…but, now, it doesn’t look like it.
I’m just hoping they get the 7 seed in the BET so I get to see a night game on Weds…
Hopefully they rest up these next 5 days, cause they only get 2 days rest between depaul and the tourney.
Something about NY brings the best out in Pitt, but I don’t know how they can go from where they are right now to putting together a three or four game run of great basketball.
Add that to the fact that ‘Cuse is the only other team that arguably has NYC magic comparable to Pitt’s and, lastly, Syracuse fans at the BET are the WORST assholes (followed closely by UConn fans and G’town fans)and it’s a nightmare match-up. Ugh.
The only good thing about that match-up is, let’s face it, Syracuse isn’t very good, either.
One last note: who’s really counting the DePaul game as an automatic W at this point???!!! REALLY? RUTGERS, people. Rutgers. And Pitt blowing dick right now. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Jaron Brown is rolling over in his grave.
This season will be ending long before we thought it would. Disappointing!!!
By the way, was that Joe Alexander or Tyler Hansbrough playing for WVU.
On defense, can we please stop playing zone and, for the love of [insert deity of your choice], give up on the motherf@#$ing hedge? Young, Blair, and Biggs obviously don’t understand how to do it or are too tired to pull it off at this point in the season. We give up easy hoop after easy hoop on it, or, in turn, we have nobody in position to rebound. Not that Sam Young ever keeps his ass on somebody to get a rebound.
If Dixon wants to change up the D, the zone clearly isn’t working. If it did work here and there, it would be a good idea, but it doesn’t, so scrap it. A half-court press might be a nice change of pace, create some turnovers, get some easy hoops.
In the end, the consistency of the problems during these last 8-10 games suggest that this team is mentally and physically spent. I think that’s why the D stinks, in particular. They were probably playing so much zone because Dixon was just trying to burn clock and get the game over with.
But, damn, that just sucked.
Yeah, that’s a great idea to do to a shorthanded team…make em play even harder, and give up a bunch of easy 3s to the other team.
I’m not worried about open 3s, b/c we seem to give those up no matter what D we’re playing.
