But Pitt still came away with the 56-48 win. One thing I take away from Pitt’s performance is that I wish they had played at least one more true road game in the non-con. Get that combination of hostile crowds and unfamiliar rims.
I mean, Pitt came out getting baskets. Biggs drilled a nice open 3, Pitt hit 4-7 in the opening minutes. Then proceeded to go 6-29 the rest of the first half. The Pitt defense was solid the entire way, thankfully, and FSU lacked real threat beyond Toney Douglas on offense. None of the other FSU players just matched up with Pitt.
FSU played a tough zone and packed them inside to keep it clogged for Blair and prevent the slashing from Young. Make the team take jump shots. The same strategy employed by UMBC and one that can be expected from any team that has a coach with an ounce of intelligence. In this game, Pitt just was horrific shooting the ball. It was brutal.
All you can do is keep the ball moving around looking for the best open shot or a moment where the defense lapses to get in down. Otherwise, you hope the rebounds are near Blair for him to corral. I’m oversimplifying, I know.
You just hope this was an outlier game on the stat chart regarding the shooting. Like the UMBC probably was the other way. Just throw the numbers out from both of the games and expect something closer to the middle.
So, I’m not going to dwell too much on the offensive numbers. Especially not the guard jump shooting. Jermaine Dixon definitely adds a slashing element to the guards and his defense has been a pleasant surprise all season — so that I don’t freak out at his now standard 3-point shot that he invariably seems to take on the first possession seemingly every game.
10 days off, and the team ends the non-con 12-0. They don’t end it with a sour taste in their mouths and punditry pointing to the final game saying, see they were overrated.
There will be questions, though. That’s going to come with playing only 1 true road game and only 3 games out of 12 against major conference opponents — and none of them ranked.
