The players and Coach Dixon admitted to not playing well and that it wasn’t a satisfactory performance.
“We weren’t good enough offensively,” Dixon said, “and we weren’t good enough defensively.”
Monday was Pitt’s only regular-season meeting with Notre Dame. The two programs could meet again in March at the Big East Tournament in a rematch of last season’s 50-45 Irish victory.
“It will hurt our guys, but we will bounce back,” Dixon said. “We’ll learn from it and be better because of it. We have to be.”
Brad Wanamaker called it another game the team can learn from. And aside from putting it behind them, that’s all they can do.
Pitt played well enough in the first half. Not fantastic, as the offense wasn’t that sharp, but certainly better than in the second half — especially on defense. That slipping in the second half definitely seems like something that irritated Coach Dixon.
“We need to go back to what we do,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said, “and do a little better at sustaining it.”
When you think about the lapses that have taken place in the second half, hopefully this will be the best reminder of what happens more than just having closer than expected moments in the second half.
How slow was that game? Really, epically slow.
Big East: “Your family, your religion, and Rutgers basketball….”
W-L Pace PPP Opp. PPP EM 1. Pitt 7-1 64.0 1.17 0.99 +0.18 2. Villanova 5-1 67.3 1.15 1.00 +0.15 3. Marquette 4-3 65.4 1.20 1.09 +0.11 4. West Virginia 4-2 65.3 1.09 1.00 +0.09 5. Louisville 4-2 70.5 1.09 1.00 +0.09 6. Syracuse 5-2 65.6 1.07 0.99 +0.08 7. Connecticut 4-2 63.6 1.05 0.99 +0.06 8. Cincinnati 4-3 63.4 1.00 0.98 +0.02 9. Notre Dame 6-3 62.0 1.06 1.06 0.00 10. Georgetown 3-4 62.8 1.07 1.10 -0.03 11. Rutgers 3-4 64.7 1.04 1.08 -0.04 12. St. John's 4-4 65.9 0.98 1.03 -0.05 13. Seton Hall 2-6 67.1 0.92 1.02 -0.10 14. S. Florida 1-7 63.6 1.00 1.11 -0.11 15. Providence 1-6 71.5 0.99 1.11 -0.12 16. DePaul 0-7 68.6 0.92 1.17 -0.25 AVG. 65.7 1.05I’m on the record as being very impressed by what Mike Rice is doing in Piscataway. That aside, our nation’s pollsters and bracketologists are more awed by the mid-section of the Big East than I am. They’re also somewhat less enthuiastic about Marquette than I am. But then the preceding two sentences are true more or less every January and Feburary. It’s uncanny. Lastly, before anyone looks at that number for pace next to Pitt and proclaims this year’s Panthers slow-paced, keep in mind Notre Dame’s 48-possession win last night (congratulations, Mike Brey) by itself shaved a full two possessions off of Pitt’s in-conference average for tempo. Heck, that game alone dropped the league’s average pace by a third of a possession.
Yeesh.
On the bright side, at least Pitt didn’t lose by 22 to Seton Hall and lose 3-straight (including two at home). But hey, at least the Orange have those epic attendance numbers in basketball to show everyone.
Ashton Gibbs’ shot hasn’t been falling lately. Second straight year he hit a slump around this time. Some of it is defenses doing all they can to keep him from being open, but he has definitely been off lately.
Pat Forde went with the does Pitt have enough talent to win in March bit.
Dixon has never had a first-rounder (that’s partially the fault of the NBA, which somehow let DeJuan Blair slip into the second round in 2009). Ryan has had just two (lottery pick Devin Harris in ’04 and overall No. 29 pick Alando Tucker in ’07). Yet neither coach has missed an NCAA tourney even once in their current jobs, and they sure won’t miss this year.
The Minutes asked ESPN.com senior college basketball recruiting analyst Dave Telep for his take on the two programs:
“Pittsburgh has lived in the top 50-100 range of prospects,” Telep said. “It’s my feeling that Dixon is the next Gary Williams (14) in that he can maximize the talents of his guys as well as anyone. …”
It’s hard to say too much without sounding defensive, but…
The one thing that Coach Dixon has done is steadily improve the talent. Yes, he is definitely improving the players and arguably maxing them out by the time they leave. But the ceiling keeps getting higher. He isn’t looking for pure system players (like Bo Ryan at Wisconsin or John Beilein at Michigan). He is looking for the best players that are willing to be coached and want to improve.
What does that mean for this year? I don’t know for sure. I do think that college basketball is so flat in terms of talent on teams that the whole argument of having NBA draft picks/McDonalds’ All-Americans may be out the window this year. So that would make it a good shot for Pitt. Something a Kentucky columnist seems to think at this point (and this was after Pitt lost on Monday).
The Panthers are overdue for the Final Four, and this could be the team to get over the hump. Jamie Dixon doesn’t have a bona fide star, but he’s solid at every position.
Not sure if overdue is quite right. Due. Perhaps.
As for the talent Pitt is recruiting, I’ll let a good villain explain reality:
[Bob] Huggins recently crossed paths with Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon while recruiting. It sparked an interesting conversation about running into other head coaches on the recruiting trail. That prompted Huggins to issue the following thought, “If you walk into a gym and Jamie and Jim Boeheim and Jim Calhoun and Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski aren’t in there, you are probably in the wrong gym because you’re recruiting guys you probably shouldn’t be recruiting.”
That wasn’t the case even a few years ago, but it is now.
I can’t really figure out that RPI rating, since Ohio State was right behind Pitt last week in RPI and they had played absolutely no one of note.
And their non-conference was filled with directional teams and ones with hyphens, I mean it was beyond ridiculous.
Again this year, there are NO GREAT teams in the NCAA, but there are quite a few very good ones.
Two play tonight, BYU & SDSU on CBS College Sports. Interesting to note, ESPN is nowhere to be found televising these two teams who have 1 loss between them and almost 40 wins.
I’m really struggling, trying to figure out in what order, who the best teams in the Big East are right now.
Fredette obviously will get his points, but truthfully, I didn’t see a lot of good defense on him. Brian Heywood, from Butler, played a lot more aggressively, and was willing to put his body into people–I didn’t see the same with Fredette.
Both teams take threes when they can, and they’re decent shooters. SDSU ran out of gas in the second half however, and their shots stopped falling.
I did not see a lot of agressive boards being taken, by either team. Each seemed to give up the offensive rebound to the other team. Some write-ups said it was physical, but I didn’t see “Big East” physical written on it. Many times on offense, SDSU hung three players out between mid-court and the top of the arc, not wanting to allow BYU to get down the court with numbers.
Both are decent teams, but I really don’t see ranking either of them any higher than high-single digits, or low teens.
My .02. Any other thoughts?
Also, surprised that Duke and Kansas aren’t getting as much love (and believe me I cringe when i say that since I hate Duke like I do Nazi’s). But with OSU, they’re the only one-loss teams from major conferences. Each of these teams, along with Pitt and ‘Nova, look pretty versatile + talented + well coached. I just have a hard time believing in smaller conf teams with these gaudy records – BYU and SDSU look good but don’t think they can withstand more than 2-3 games against the big boys.
My guess is that 3 of these five (OSU, Pitt, ‘Nova, Duke, Kansas) will be in the final four with one under-seeded, surprise team — likesome who can go nuts a few straight games to will the team in (like Jimmer, or Kemba Walker, etc). I like our odds, but goodness knows in a field like this anything seems possible.
I admire how Pitt has accomplished so much without going the route of recruiting players with questionable backgrounds and motives. Sure, all recruits have the “dream” of moving to the next level. But Pitt has kept a good distance from players with handlers and troubled backgrounds for the most part. Now the real test will be in the next few years, with the influx of highly regarded players with the chance of leaving early. These young men seem to fit the character mold Dixon is looking for, along with great basketball skills (4 & 5 star players). It is a high wire act to replace players who can easily jump to the NBA after a year or two of college. I think Dixon is ready to face that challenge and up the stakes. With him mixing in the McGhee’s and Gibb’s of the future with the top notch talent he now attracts.
