Maybe I am being too optimistic, but although I am ticked off with the loss and how they played, I am actually higher on this team than I was before last night. I really think this team has the talent to make a long run in March.

Fields was 3-14 with 6 TO’s. Did he have six turnovers all season combined before this game? How many times is he going to play that poorly.

Young was 6-20, 0 fts as you pointed out, and 2 rebounds I believe. You have to believe he will not play this way for much longer.

Blair played 20 minutes. I do wish Jamie would have put him in a little sooner (5-6 minute mark) and taken a chance.

The bench gave them nothing except a few more turnovers and some fouls. Wannamaker and Brown both played very poorly.

Now with all of this, they were up 10 against a very good team on the road with 8 minutes or so to play. They were still in this game into the last minute (How does Blair miss that layup on the missed free throw?) After shooting 1 for their last 18 shots and going something like 8 minutes in the first half without a FG, they still could have easily won this game.

That’s my main take from this game – maybe this team is good enough that even on a very off night, they have a chance to beat anyone they play. Again, maybe I am being too optimistic. If they lost to the Cuse, maybe I’ll start worrying a bit too.

we ran into a bit of a perfect storm saturday.

* hot team, playing infront of 20,000 rabid fans
* inconsistent calls by the zebras, especially effecting our pivot in the paint
* cold shooting by two of our go-to players
* a geeked up team playing a rabid brand of pressing d
* when last second and off balance threes start swishing you know you are behind the 8-ball

with all of that said, u of l was just six points better. so be it.

i think the thing that bothered me the most is that we seemed to lose our poise for the first time this year. we have to learn from it, tighten some things up, and crank it up monday night.

btw, for those that didn’t see it…here are some comments from the world-wide-leader on the game:

Against Pittsburgh on Saturday night, the telltale moment came near the four-minute mark, after a Samardo Samuels dunk tied the score at 58.

“You could see it right then — they were wasted,” Louisville guard Edgar Sosa said.”

thats the kind of comment that can come back to haunt you…in say, march at MSG.

To Keith W. –

I hope the Pitt fanbase will take your words to heart.

ONE GAME does not a season make!

Louisville IS the hot Big East team of the moment. But nothing can be taken for granted in this conference.

The Panthers are a strong, smart basketball team that is also well-coached.

As Louisville Coach Pitino tells his players, “Look ahead, not behind.”

Thanks for a memorable, hard-fought game.

a few notes —

1) Louisville always plays a very ambitious pre-season schedule and not afraid to have losses before conference play … yet they are battled-tested. The two times Pitt were tested earler this year (at Rutgers and FSU) were against inferior teams. FSU is good but by no means real good.

2) Sam is in a shooting slump, making less than 33% in his last 3 games. More revealing, he did not shoot a free throw which remarkable, even though replays clearly showed him being hacked at least 3 times … you may remember when the Lville player jumped over him but landed on Sam’s head & shoulder. I know the BE is a physical conference but it is unsettling when Blair gets called on non-shooting touch fouls … which leads into my next point …

3) Pitino is quoted post-game as saying, ‘refereeing in the BE is a tough job, I wouldn’t want to do it.’ I’ll let you decide why you think he said that.

4) Nonetheless, in the end, UL was the better team last night … time to focus on SU for tomorrow night.

Lastly, not a good week for Pitt …. (1) Shady goes pro, (2) Pitt gets 1st loss, and now (3) Paul Jones, big (junior) QB prospect just gave verbal to PSU – said he has always been PSU fan. The last 3 major PGH area QB prospects (Morelli & Pryor) have all left the area.

I wouldn’t necessarily call Notre Dame previously hot and now ice cold. Notre Dame’s ability completely hinges on where they’re playing. They’re still undefeated at home, and lost two in a row at Louisville and at Syracuse.

Pitt wins easily last night on a neutral court. the Cards couldn’t hang with us when Blair was in, regardless of how poorly Brown/Wanamaker/Biggs/Young played.

On a positive note….Tyrell Biggs has improved massively and was the second best player for Pitt on the floor all night. I thought the game turned on Sam Young’s steal and show off thunder dunk! If you really want to piss off and rachet up the other team, just keep doing that. At the time Pitt had a 10 point lead and was cruising….3 minutes later it was tied. A regular dunk would have sufficed and it’s not like Sam was “lighting it up” all over the floor. Show some class!

All else has been said about the loss. As an ex coach, I always think teams learn much more from losses than wins…We’ll see soon.

As a huge Steeler fan, I hope this in not a trend!

C’mon dan 72 …. blaming the loss on a showboat dunk is like a player from a winning team attributing their win on the pre-game trash talk by the losing team. I’ll guarantee that the team with the more showboat dunks are much more common to the winning team than the losing team. Was the style of dunk umnecessary, yes …. but what propelled UL to their big 1st half run when they outscored us 16-3?? Did that dunk lead to Pitt clanging 13 shots in a row — many of them uncontested?

UL has a history of runs — that is what they do. Pitt was just unable to minimize them especially with Blair on the bench, Borwn a no-show, and Young in a slump.

Pitt never had much to do with the outcome last night because their effort and play is pretty much consistent. Louisville, on the other hand, is a pretty variable team………some good nights, some bad nights, mostly hinging on whether they shoot the ball well. Last night they hit big threes when it counted. There will be plenty of other nights when guys like Knowles and Terence Williams miss a ton of treys, and that team will lose because of it.

Forecasting what’s going to happen to Pitt isn’t all that difficult. You pretty much know Blair’s going to get in foul trouble when he’s facing a front line that’s as big as he is, you know Fields might not shoot well against larger, quicker defenders and Sam Young struggles when he’s facing defenders who are just as athletic as he is. No surprises in any of that.

What was good about last night was how Dixon and Biggs played. It’s really good to see that those kids are coming along. Dixon was really aggressive and you can’t make fun of Biggs these days because he’s bringing a solid effort night in and night out. Even Wanamaker had his moments.

All in all, not a bad effort by the Panthers. About what you’d expect. I think this team, because of the supporting cast, has a bit more chance to do well in March than the teams of the past few years.

And the Sam Young thing concerns me. This is a guy who was being talked about as a potential POY candidate in the Big East. He’s rapidly playing his way off of that list.

All I can think of is that he’s just not as comfortable on the perimeter, which is where he has to spend more of his time these days. I hope Dixon spends some time thinking of ways for Sam to get the ball on the baseline and in the lane, because I think that’s where he excels. (And it’s where he can draw fouls.)

I know the conventional wisdom is that Sam had to move his game outside because any NBA aspirations would be based on his perimeter skills, but sometimes he seems like a fish out of water 22 feet from the hoop.

Agreed that how we respond is more important if we get better and make adjustments. We all know the #1 rank in the season is great but it’s March Madness that counts. On a football note not reading much about the 9-4 end, no ranking, Shady making his decision with Sun Bowl in mind, and overall review of program’s progress 4 years in. Majors, Gottfreid, Harris all had two bowls by two years in.

Even as poorly as we finished, when the refs don’t think that jumping over and sitting on sam young’s head while he is in the act of shooting is not a foul… I thought this is where the game turned. If Sam gets and makes two shots, I think we would have been up by six. Still, when Sam’s slump ends look out. Hope it’s tommorrow. Really encouraging at the end of the first half without Young and Blair…

I know Brown didn’t show up much in the box score, but Dixon held him on the bench way too long. At times Dixon had Biggs, Dixon, Wannamaker, Gibbs, and Young on the floor. Know wonder we were getting hammered on the boards. With Brown having only three fouls, in my opinion he must be on the floor more in that situation. Dixon, for whatever reason, is falling in love with Wannamaker. The kid had one excellent game and two average games, and now everytime you turn around he’s in the game. I’m sorry, but for the most part I think he plays out of control and trys to dribble the ball way too much. When he drives to the hole, unlike Dixon, he almost always gets stuffed. Yes, I do think he should be playing, but he is seeing a lot more playing time than he deserves. He must be great in practice, but so far it hasn’t translated into the games on a consistant basis. And yes, I do believe he’s improved over last year, but he still has many miles to go to be a good player. Robinson is a player that I think could help if he started seeing a little more playing time in spots.

I think the game was pretty simple. If Blair stays out of foul trouble, they win the game. Pitt’s defense will always be there. They just needed a few of Blair’s second chance points and they would have won. I think Dixon made some mistakes, like having Wannamaker break the press so many times.

concur with previous comments. Pitt will find it difficult to win with Blair playing only 20 min. and Brown, Wannamaker not contibuting. I was very pleased by the hustle and effectiveness of Jermaine Dixon.

What I will take away the most from this game is the “coming into their own” play of Biggs and Dixon. This team still hasn’t fired on all cylinders and Biggs and Dixon were the reason why. Now you can see it all coming together in March.

Louisville actually had a terrible shooting day yesterday. These guys be will tough when they start hitting shots. Enough with the officiating comments, plenty of bad non-calls on both ends The difference yesterday was Pitino’s defense.

http://uoflcardgame.com

I agree with the comments Levance made after the game: this is a good thing, because it proves to the team that we’re beatable, gives us something to focus on, shows us where we can improve, and bring us back to Earth a little bit. I don’t think the officiating was stellar, but I don’t think the officials decided the game. I think they beat us. Sure, they used their home court advantage, and caught a few breaks on the calls, but that’s part of the game. They deserved, on this night, to win the game. We’re a very good team, and we keep having different guys step up and show that they belong — Biggs and Dixon yesterday — and it should help us in the long run.

Also, big ups to Agnes and the women, for snapping their losing streak with a dominant performance over a solid South Florida team. Good to see.

Go Pens! Go Stillers! Hail to Pitt!

I disagree – I think Biggs had a really bad game. He played tentative/afraid from 2 minutes in until there were 2 minutes left. He didn’t go to “meet the ball” way too many times when it was being passed to him and that led to turnovers. His offensive rebounding was good at the end of the game, but his shots inside were all tentaive/cautious, not aggressive at all. Look – he had 6 points in the 3-1/2 minutes on 2 3-pointers and finished with 8 points. He took 5 shots in 32 minutes. That’s not a breakout game – that’s regressing.

I agree with everyone’s comments – we don’t deserve to win when Young doesn’t get to the free throw line.

The real tipping point? Young’s inciting 360 dunk.

not using this as an excuse, but am i the only one to think the BE officials are terrible…too many missed calls and no calls….also pitt seems to be on the short end of those calls, if it was a top ACC team, they certainly would get any toss up calls.

larry fitzgerald makes me smile…..

ACC officiating s much bias towards Duke and UNC … is there any player more protected than Hansborough? He consistently initiates contact by going directly into his defender, and the defender gets called. Yet with all the physical play in the BE that goes uncalled, Blair gets called for non-consequential touch calls – makes no sense.

I disagree with the previous negative posts about Wannamaker. Yes, he did play out of control a few times but no more than anyone else ast night including Fields. Wannamker was more useful than being credited. Coach Dixon entrusted him with breaking the press even when Fields was in the game therfore taking some of the pressure off of Levance. Even though not a natural point guard, Wannamaker may prove not only to be valuable this year but even maybe more so next year when Fields is gone.

Pitt’s recruiting point guards by the tons, so I don’t see Wannamaker, thank God, handling that duty too often unless Coach Dixon is losing his mind. Wannamaker would be fine if he stays under control and doesn’t try to do more than he’s capable of at this point in his career. Sometimes he gets to cute with his passes and dibbles too much which gets him into trouble. Just be a role player at this time and maybe in the future he can be more productive on the offensive end. Dixon hopefully has found his stride. I believe to go deep in March Dixon, Biggs, and Brown are the keys. Hopefully by then the real Young will return and Blair will figure out how to stay out of foul trouble.

I agree that Brown can be a key but maybe he needs to be more assertive. To this point, Pitt always had a player or two step up when Blair and/or Young has faltered — Brown did very little when he was in. Don’t know if he shied away but in 13 minutes, he had 3 rebounds and 3 fouls and 0 shots. I’m sure he would have played more if was more into the game, but obviously Coach had resrevations about him. Brown has an awful lot of natural ability — hope he uses it a bit more when called.

Larry Fitz may not have scored the winning TD but he had 3 very key catches in the winning drive, in addition to his 3 TDs.

Pitt may not have the richest college fotball tradition but they certainly have given some of the best performers in my lifetime with the likes of Fitz, Dorsett, Marino, Fralic and even Shady.

Nontheless, the best college football player I ever saw (from Pitt or any other school) was undoubtedly Hugh Green.

Young didn’t get to the FT line because he got @#$%ed in the ass by the refs.

– He had some guy jump on his head, NO CALL.

– he got pushed to the ground grabbing a rebound – TRAVEL on him.

– Young takes it to the hoop, guy slides under him while in air causing him to miss – AND he gets rung up for a bullshit offensive foul. 2 More FTs he got screwed out of.

Young should have been at the line plenty last night, and there is NOTHING more he could have done about it. He was getting jumped on, grabbed, pushed, you name it, and didn’t get ONE FUCKING CALL.

I can’t wait to kill them in the BET. They better hope they lose before they get to us. We won’t get homered there…

So, what t-shirt will Pitt put out this week? “We used to be #1”?

I’m not happy with this loss, but I’m not destroyed by it either. When you are playing a tough BE team on the road, being in a position to win the game at the end is a positive thing. Lville made their shots when it counted and we did not. End of story. I give a lot of credit to the Lville defense, they played everything tight and did a great job with offensive rebounds. As for Young’s play, the only criticism I have is that Young should only drive to the basket when he has a clear lane. Driving into traffic is not a strength for him and often results in a TO. As for the windmill dunk, I was throughly entertained by it, as was the Pitt bench, the Lville team, the Lville fans, and the national TV audience…Dunk on Sam, dunk on!!!

Thanks Charlie for your insightful comment about officiating. It is nice to be told by a fan of the other team that we shouldn’t complain about officiating. Of course we shouldn’t, it went in YOUR favor. The game had bad calls on both sides, but there were several times, well before the Sam Young “I’ll sit on your head” incident that made me question whether or not these officials had orders to call the game against Pitt. It was a horrendously officiated game.

I will say this, though. Pitt still could have and should have won in spite of the officiating. Even with the officials taking the ball out of our players’ hands and forcing our stars to the bench on BS call after BS call, and then ignoring rapings by Louisville players, Pitt still was up 10. If they make any shots in the last 10 minutes they still win the game. This team had a chance to play through piss poor officiating and still come out with a win.

The real positive that I see for this team coming out of the loss is the amount of high pressure game time our younger guys got. Say what you will about them not putting up the numbers that you want, but we led the entire game until slowly pissing it away at the very end. Guys like Wannamaker, Brown, and Gibbs really got some great experience so that when this team rests on them, it won’t be the first time they are in a huge pressure situation.

Jamie Dixon needs to use Nasir Robinson and get him minutes and experience. Gary McGhee isn’t a viable option and shouldn’t even see the floor.

Andrew,

You are way off base about the t-shirt issue. That t-shirt wasn’t made for anyone but Pitt fans. It may be a miscalculation by showing the rest of the country that we are relative newcomers to this success. But Pederson has always been great at marketing and getting Pitt fans fired up and getting new people in Pittsburgh interested in Pitt. Why shouldn’t the University be happy and celebrate such an event as being no. 1 for the first time?

So we lost. Oh well. Raise your hand on this board if you thought Pitt would go undefeated this season…

No one…

OK. Most of us believed that Pitt would lose at least 1 game in this 5 game rough stretch. None of us thought there was a chance to go undefeated in the Big East.

I, for one, am quite proud of our first 2 weeks at no. 1, and look forward to longer visits there in the future.

I don’t know if you, Andrew, are a Pitt fan who is belittling Pederson, or if you are one of these guys who goes to other boards and doesn’t link back to the team you root for when you post. If you are a Pitt fan, just be happy with what we have accomplished. If you are a fan of another school, what is that school ranked?

As a Louisville fan: I love Pitt and I love the Big East. Even when the game is ugly, the effort out there is amazing to watch. Good luck.

Prowler,

I am a Pitt man thru and thru! I agree that the loss does not make the season, and love the way we rebounded tonight. I just think the t-shirt was a bit silly, that’s all. I’m all for the hype that this team and school deserves.

Hail to Pitt!

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