Live stream of telecast here:

link to justin.tv

apparently foreigners are allowed to camp in the key. With 1:11 left in the half, the chooch entered the key, ay 1:06 he was passed the ball and was fouled at 1:05. Also, if it isn’t enough that they have a heighth advantage, the last 2 points before the halftime buzzer certainly wasn’t the first time they pushed off from behind and went over the top for the rebound

I take back all compliments I played to big Gary b4 the game, he took a step back today. We have stunk but on top of that this referring is silly. The refs are so damn worried about the game getting out of hand that every touch has become a foul. Here’s an idea to keep the game from being out of hand: Throw out all of the classless Hoopie students. Between the swearing chants, the throwing things on the court, and throwing things at the coaches it is an embarassment to have this team in the Big East. Oh ya and throw Thoroughman out of the game, guys a jacka$$ instigator that would fit better in the classless stands than on the floor.

Thanks Chas.

Back to the game Pitt isn’t tough enough to play in that kind of environment against that kind of team apparently. This is not a typical physical, tough, mentally tough Pitt team. It was easy when there were no expectations and everyone looked past them, no pressure. Now,each little mistake gets compounded and compounded. Nobody steps forward with any confidence or as a leader. J.J. Richardson showed toughness tonight and Dixon at times but that is it. Gibbs, has become a head case going from one of the best shooters in the country to one of the worst on the team, no swag whatsover. I wish someone would step forward with some SWAGGER on this team or some confidence because it is completely void right now. They still have a chance at being a successful team. That won’t happen unless someone steps up as a leader and these guys learn to forget a missed shot, errant pass, missed rebound and play on with some freaking confidence. It is so frustrating to watch when you know how good they can be, heck Wanamaker looks afraid to shoot the ball.

no place to go but up after tonight. Gibbs not only can’t make a shot from the outside, but now he is missing ft’s. No question WV is more talented than we are–but no pts from Gilbert Brown and Brad Wannamaker–total domination on the glass–we have really regressed since winning those first 3 games on the road. 30% shooting won’t get it done–wish we had gradually started to play better (ala USF), but we now appear in free fall. Dixon is a great coach, but I don’t know what he can do to repair a team’s confidence.

I expected us to lose but I haven’t been this mad about a loss all season – I don’t know why. Maybe this is where the talent level really is, but so many opportunities tonight. Every time they fought back and got within two or three, they would miss an easy shot or throw up a stupid shot or something.

Can’t believe two of the top four players on the team didn’t score a point. That is simply amazing.

Sad part is that I really don’t know what Coach Dixon does. What options does he have? I would use Richardson more after he showed at least a little energy tonight, something that Dante Taylor hasn’t shown since the Syracuse game. That’s another amazing development – I cannot believe this kid is as bad as he looks with all of the pub about him.

Realistically, I think Saturday is a must win. 10-8 is probably what it takes, and we already have six losses (counting Nova and WVU). A loss to SHU would be devastating, confidence and record wise.

face it, we were beaten by a much better team … beaten at every phase.

If we’re not hitting shots, we have to rebound and are just not doing it in the BE with two 6’5 power forwards with no bulk …. it’s as simple as that

West Virginia certainly outplayed Pitt tonight. However, the WVU fans really stepped up and showed their true colors. The TV announcers were certainly not impressed with the crowd’s behavior. “Suck my Dixon;” “Eat Sh*t Pitt;” “Ugly M*Fer?” and those are from the most prominent institution of higher education in the state.

Pitt has ZERO inside game. You can’t win games when your inside men get no respect. You would think after battling Blair in the post at practice all of last year McGhee would be better. It’s like running a race with one leg.

was this game held at Folsom Prison? classless fans hit our asst coach in the face with a thrown object. One more hit than Brad and Gil made all night. My man McGhee missed two many shots, even with the thugs hanging on his arms. As stated above, 30% shooting, 11 missed foul shots and Gibbs shooting 2-13 spells defeat. Taylor is a bust. JJ showed some promise.Defense gave up too many open 3’s. Jamie D. needs to right this ship fast. Offense just plain sucks.Sat is a must win.

OK …took a long deep breath and read all of the above. MY 2 cents….the one thing in common with all our losses is the total dissapearance of our offense and not getting open looks. Pitt runs a variation of a 1-4 high weave setting multiple screens to get open shots. All 5 of the last teams decided to switch on those screens so basically we are running around in a chinese fire drill and accomplishing little. One would think with all the switchs we could find a mismatch…but we do not have the talent to do it!
Everyone has lost their bravado and confidence.

Have no idea what coach Dixon can do…we simply don’t have the talent of a WVU, Cuse, Nova et al.

NIT might be a push for this team.

He will earn his salary …that’s for sure.

I said it after the football game, and got flamed by a couple of WVU trolls on here – WVU administration and alumni should be embarrassed by the conduct of their students and fans. The fact that they do virtually nothing to eliminate the behavior tells me that they either don’t care or don’t have the guts to do what is right. Either way, the classlessness oozes from the top down…

WVU was the better team tonight, as they should be with everyone returning from last year along with some strong new additions.

Their fans are IDIOTS and the WVU administration needs to do something about it before someone really gets hurt. A couple of inches the wrong way and Herrion might have lost an eye. Sickening.

Richardson provided a bright spot as noted by others. Maybe he’s played his way into the rotation for McGhee instead of Taylor, which might allow Taylor to move to the 4. Don’t think he’s a bust, rather a guy who’s seriously out of position. He’s a finess player not a banger. Remember, he won the skills competition at the McDonald’s AA weekend. It surely would give us some needed height at PF and allow Brown to move to the 3.

Jamie needs to shake things up somehow. It’s getting scary now. USF now has the mojo we once had and we need to get it back. Otherwise, the “NIT” the hoopie fans were chanting might be our fate. Would hate to see that ending after the way the season started.

Keeping the faith.

We need 4 big east wins to make the NCAAs IMO. Seton Hall and St. Johns (part 2 each) are both winnable.

Then we just need to squeak out two more wins in conference, get to 10 in conference wins (21 overall because we shouldn’t have much trouble with the guys from Moon… I hope….) and see what happens.

West Virginia is a very good team. We knew they’d be better than us this year. Let’s just get to the dance, get our youngsters the needed experience, and have them come back with more experience (not to mention a great recruiting class) next year.

Remember, it sucks now, and the early BE success raised expectations, but this is pretty much what we were expecting before this season started.

wbb its not the size that is killing us on the boards, it is that we don’t box out period. That is also the danger of playing zone, which unfortunately we do because of our effort in m2m defense. This team’s rebounding struggles are do to effort not height. If they could play m2m and box out they would rebound fine. But when you don’t move to get in front of people and are in a zone it makes it look like your height kills you on rebounds. This team needs a heart and confidence more than anything. (yes this team isn’t as talented as WVU, but that doesn’t mean they can’t win as they did ad Cuse Uconn and Cinci, 3 more talented teams.)

The Big East should fine WVU around $30 – $50 K to get there attention. That was just pathetic. But, as far as the game goes Pitt deservered to loose, missed lay-ups, easy put back missed etc. Also WVU had one of their best shooting nights of the season. Time to regroup, they have the talent they just need the confidence!

i know we had infinitely more talent back then but the 08 pitt team went 10-8 and they had a great year in the end in winning the big east. if we get to the tournament, this is a successful year. we will be much better next year

Ontario, how do you box out with 6’5 thin players? This is a physical conference, and for once, we are extremely WEAK. You either have bulk or height or both … we have neither.

… and the wins earlier in the year, we were shooting lights out average approx 75 ppg. In those games, we gave up about 65 ppg. Now, in the last few weeks, we are still giging up about 65 ppg,but our point production is way down by over 13 ppg. If we can’t shoot, we need to rebound … and we;’re not doing that either.

effort…Besides the Turkish guy on WVU who exactly had bulk that is too strong to box out? If Robinson or Brown can’t box out guys of that bulk Pitt would have been out rebounded every game this year. But they haven’t. I don’t disagree that it helps, but its not that these guys aren’t capable, because they have proven that they are.

Ontario: I have to agree with wbb. I was at the USF game, and we were doing a decent job of boxing out. However the taller USF guys were going over the top and tapping the ball back to their guards to avoid fouling. We need need some height in there. We got spoiled by Blair – a freak of nature rebounder – and we suffered when he wasn’t in there. McGhee has been a pleasant surprise, but he’ll never be Blair. He needs someone on the opposite side to help out. Someone in say the 6’8″ – 6’9″ range. I don’t care if that’s Taylor or Richardson.

there were more than a handful of times when they went over the top of our players for rebounds/putbacks to night. The freigner went over Taylor … which put him on the bench for good, and the very last play of the 1st half when they scored after a miss going over Nasir .. only two examples of many.

hate to toot my own horn, but i have been saying these things all year…taylor at the 4..richardson more playing time..zone was effective….maybe gil will get the start….shake this team up….what will it hurt….the bust has been woodall….he could not beat man to man def up the floor….seems to have a decent handle, but slow or not strong enough to beat defenders and make a play….senseless having gibbs at the point, or if you do, then make him be the distributor….he is working so hard to get open, we then have no guard running the offense…you cant do both, unless you are a future pro….when wannamaker is leading team in assists, you have no point guard. and i am not knocking wannamaker, just the guard play in general. i agree lets go big, go zone and run a more conventional type offense…slow it down and pound it inside and hope we get the rebound. here is my rotation mcghee-richardson, nasir-taylor, brown-wannamaker, dixon-wannamaker-gibbs, gibbs-woodall

Overall a bad game for the whole team with minor exceptions to Richardson and Dixon. as mentioned by TampaT, perhaps Jamie will use Richardson to backup Gary allowing Taylor to get more time at the 4. I dont think Taylor even played in the 2nd half. Also, I know we shouldnt expect Gary to be an offensive juggernaut, but more often than not I saw him missing layup after layup (3-11 from the field- for a guy that doesnt normally shoot outside the paint). I know he may have got fouled on some of these, but most of them were clean looks that should have been easy buckets or a trip to the line. Hopefully some home cookin on Saturday can bring them out of this funk!

Taylor stood under the hoop watching the basket on the play you are talking about…that isn’t boxing out and only proves my point (which is why he was benched, not because of his height or bulk issues). Kalicli was a good 5 feet behind him as the shot went up. Instead of closing out on Kalicli and sealing him off, Taylor decided his jumping ability/height would be enough to grab the board. It wasn’t though. Had Taylor moved into his man, and sealed him with his rear end, as you are taught even in youth hoops, Kalicili would have had no opportunity to jump over him. When you box out people cannot jump over you unless it is on long rebounds. If they do it will be over the back. Either way, lets agree that the rebounding is atrocious. And for the record, I’m not crazy about the 4 being played by Nasir or someone as skinny as Gilbert. However, they were able to board against a pretty huge/athletic Syracuse team, because they were moving into people. They did not wait for the ball to come to them as we see now. The reason we saw Dixon/Wanamaker and guys like that have big rebounding numbers early were the bigs were getting into people and sealing, this left the guards to clean up. Now our bigs are sitting under the hoop, boosting there own numbers a little but giving up tons of offensive boards as a consequence. Rebounding is not about who jumps highest to get the ball, it is all positioning, sealing people off, and keeping your man from getting the ball.

Blair just finished the 1st half with 16 pts coming off the bench … remember, he is only supposed to be a Jr .. (this would have put Taylor at the 4 with a lot less focus on him)

they may have moved Syracuuse around but haven’t done it since …. they looked like a high school team tonight under the boards the way they were pushed around tonight

wbb I completely agree with you on that. That is what happens when guys stand around waiting to jump for rebounds. It was bad.

Local Tampa TV showing highlights of USF/G’town and Dominique “D-Wade” Jones. Ugh. But, Pitt losing to them doesn’t feel so bad anymore.

drgags: You can toot your horn but so can others who said much the same on this board. Thing was that when we were shooting >45% from the field and >75% from the line, it wasn’t broke so it didn’t need fixed. Tonight we shot 30% from the field, 20% from behind the arc and 60% from the line. That’s the low point so far of a trend that started with the L’ville game.

Don’t see how Jamie can keep doing the same thing and expect a different result, but he’s a far better coach than I so I’ll trust in his decisions and continue to hope for a Sweet 16 finish when it’s all said and done. (I said HOPE, not expect.)

Like your rotation though.

Ontario: Agree with you 100% on the principles of boxing out and rebounding. However, as a short guy who often had to match up against tall guys, I can tell you that you end up jumping about 3 times as much during a game. Over the course of a season, it takes a toll on your legs. When the legs go, you often end up flat-footed on rebounds and defense, and your shooting goes as well. Hmm, does that ring any bells?

From the Post-Gazette – I think this pretty much summarizes the past four or five games.

“After Pitt cut the lead to two points, the Panthers missed their next 10 shots from the field. They did not make a field goal again until 4:47 remained.”

We will win three more Big East Games, one or two at the Garden, and we make the dance. Let’s relax. We don’t have to be ranked in the top twenty. And if we ever have a chance to stick to WVU on the scoreborad in basketball or football, we need to do it for poor Tom Herrion. I know our fans won’t sink to that level next week on the 12th.

the one good thing is that after 2011, we won’t have to play there ever again if we don’t want to. BTW, is that announcement today or tomorrow?

Blair finished with 20.

SportsCenter intro, “…hear me now, fear the Mountaineers.” Please. Maybe fear one of their idiot fans throwing a brick at your head.

TAMPAT … you are right in your comment that good shooting can hide alot of a teams weakspots…but Jammie dixon did know that his defense and rebounding better be there…he preaches it everytime he speaks…He is a fine coach, but i do believe he is stubborn in his ways….being flexible is important especially when your team underwent a radical change..(blair, biggs, young, fields)…so now we need a shake up and that is all i propose..something different….every spring i look forward to going to tournament games and i have traveled the last 5 years or so…cant wait, want to do it again. go pitt….i am with you, NCAA,NIT (more home games to see, bright spot) Regardless we will all remain PITT PROUD…..HAIL TO PITT !!

OnatrioLett’sGoPitt,
Your rebounding theory is great, but sometimes rebounding is just simple physics, the mass of the rebounders ass. Blair is a great example of what works and Taylor of what doesn’t.

DRGAGS: Agree with you on the need for a shake up. Have been a proponent of Taylor to the 4 and Brown to the 3 for some time. Mentioned in another thread that I’d like to see McGhee, Taylor and Brown on the floor together just to see what that might produce. Oh yeah, interior defense might be an issue, but it’s worth a chance to see if it might jumpstart our interior offense and help the rebounding.

Right on, Shady: Body of a linebacker + wrecking ball for a butt + wingspan of a 7-footer = freak of nature rebounder named Blair.