Well, unless you were a Seton Hall fan. It sure didn’t help the Hall’s chances that one of the few players on the team that plays defense like he actually enjoys it — Keon “wrong-way on the highway” Lawrence was still back in New Jersey (very vague reasons that SHU Coach Gonzo swears are minor and personal).
What amazes me about this Seton Hall season is that it isn’t going anywhere near their two expected scripts. The first was that they would rip themselves apart with the assembled transfers and all the baggage brought with them. At the very least it would be entertaining theater. The other scenario would be that the team would gel and with that talent finish in the upper-half of the conference and be a NCAA Team — they were a trendy BE darkhorse darling.
Instead it is neither. Just like the past couple years under Gonzalez. They are unpredictable with effort and how good or bad they play. Part of it is that they remain an undisciplined team that can’t control their emotions. The whole team is like that starting with their coach. He can’t control himself, the players act the same way.
Little factoids about the reason to go forward with the game was the Big East rules enforced to the letter.
“It is Big East policy that as long as the opposing team is in town and can arrive at the arena safely and the officiating crew is in town and can arrive safely, you play the game,” Pitt associate athletic director E.J. Borghetti said.
The game was played with two officials, the NCAA minimum, because one of the scheduled refs, Evon Burroughs, was reportedly stuck on the turnpike en route from the eastern part of the state.
Seton Hall arrived on a chartered flight from the New York metro area Friday afternoon, beating the brunt of a storm that piled nearly two feet of snow on Western Pennsylvania and prompted Gov. Ed Rendell to declare a state of emergency.
“Taking off was fine,” Seton Hall sports information director Matt Sweeney said. “Landing, we really couldn’t see much until we were about 150 feet off the ground.”
The weather conditions forced the entire Seton Hall contingent — coaches, players, managers — to walk about five blocks in the snow to their downtown hotel when the chartered bus got stuck after a yesterday morning shoot-around.
On the return trip later in the afternoon, the chartered bus needed a couple of tries before making it up the steep hill to its parking spot at the Pete loading docks.
As for the lack of TV, it was all on the hill.
We’ve been told ESPN Regional did send its people to Pittsburgh but that the production truck could not make it up the hill to the Petersen Events Center due to the icy road conditions. ESPN can rule the world but it can’t rule mother nature.
I’m sure that the hill was eventually cleared — or the SHU bus would never have made it — but not early enough.
Pitt did a lot of things right in the game. They shared the ball, played strong defense — stifling and frustrating Pope which encouraged bad shooting and dumb fouls, but most importantly — scoring. The assists come when Pitt makes baskets. Frankly, Pitt has been horrible at scoring. They’ve had a chances, but haven’t finished or done anything on the perimeter.
You don’t get many assists when you shoot between 30 and 40%. When much more of the offense seemed to come from just driving to the basket. You get a lot more when you shoot over 50%. The offense showed much more flow and there was a lot more movement without the ball.
“The main focus was running our motion, setting screens and creating shots for other people,” Brown said. “The last couple of games we hadn’t been getting many assists on baskets. We had a lot of one-on-one plays. Coach emphasized that the last couple of days and that improved our offense.
“I think we really struggled the last couple of games when our offense was stagnant. You didn’t see a lot of movement and that really hurt us. Even in the games we won we got away from what we do best. Tonight was a prime example of what we need to do on offense.”
One example of that was in Pitt’s assist total. The Panthers had 20 assists on 31 field goals. Pitt had a season-low five assists in the West Virginia game and had only 13 in the previous two games combined.
“I thought we moved the ball better today,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “That was something we emphasized the last two days. I think that was the key. That got us going. We were smoother.”
Watching the game on the computer video feed makes it hard for me to give fair evaluations of individual players. For live-action computer video, it wasn’t bad. But it was still a computer feed. Choppy, blurry and a small screen do not lend to seeing details.
So, there isn’t much more I can add to this and the box score.
he difference in strength between Taylor and McGhee is startling. Pope tried the same moves against McGhee and had a lot of trouble finishing. I think a summer in the weight room will be huge for Taylor.
There was no doubt that Taylor was out of hsape, and huffing and puffing last summer …. but Panthermana was 100% correct about Zeise going over the top with hyperbole when he is tring to make a point … he kind of did that last week on hs blog about the Pitt blogs reporting the B11 expansion announcement. He correctly reported that there was never any confirmation from Pitt or the B11, but just ranted on and on how nonsensible the whole situation was.
I agree that he is a good daily reporter and brings much insight on Pitt FB, but when he gets on the soapbox, look out!
The last thing we need are local reporters coming down on the kid, just when he seems to have his head back in the game again.
As Chas confirmed in a previous conversation, Taylor was out of shape over the Summer, because he was caring for his sick mother. He was in shape by the time it counted. Maybe Zeise needs to read this blog once in awhile to check his facts before shooting off his mouth. Oh, that’s right, blogs are full of rumor and inuendo.
