Stuck working all afternoon, and no where near a computer. This is why I was really ticked about the SI.com story. It meant no chance to do any basketball stuff before the game.
So, I have to set this up now, and set it to go out a little later.
This is one of the can’t lose games. USF is really bad. Pitt, though, didn’t give a good effort last time. They had about 15 minutes and that was enough. They need to do more this time.
As usual moderated chat. Redundancy, over-the-top hyperbole/reactions and idiocy are good ways to not get comments through.
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Hail to PITT!
-al-
Do this against a better team, down, 3,5,9 at half, someone, is going to come out in the second half, and ADD to their lead, and suddenly we’ll be down 15 with 13 minutes to play.
Love Pitt hoops, wouldn’t trade Jamie or the last 10 years for anything, but, better start getting em’ fired up, from the get go!
That won’t work in Round 2 and deeper of the Big Dance. Maybe they’re scouting needs fine tuned and/or JD needs to start screaming at them pre-game. Or Brandin, something, anything.
So happy to see Pitt push the pace after struggling early with offense. Can’t wait to get Gibbs his first shot until 10 minutes have passed by.
Interior defense picked up in the second half. Really impressed with Richardson. Getting better every game and he has a mid-range game that adds another facet to the Pitt offense.
On the downside, I can’t help but think Dante is hurting. Stuffed at the rim by a guard and moving gingerly all over the court. With Zanna out, this means that Richardson and Nas will have to step it up because Taylor’s play and/or health are regressing.
Finally, solid showing by Pitt fans. Probably equal to, or possibly more than the number of USF fans in attendance.
Hail to Pitt! Let’s beat Nova on Saturday and close the book on this thing.
He was really hamstrung by injuries, but his kids graduate and he is still pulling some decent talent.
Weird year in college hoops. You just don’t look at any squads and think “Yes, automatic one seed.” I guess OSU, Kansas and Duke are the closest there are to that designation, but those teams just aren’t as good as the elite teams of past years. Look at Kansas, for example. Last year’s KU team had a stud PG in Collins, an NBA big man in Aldrich and freak freshman in Xavier Henry plus everybody they have back (the Morrises, Taylor) this year (except Selby, whose impact has been up and down). This year’s KU team doesn’t even belong on the same court as that squad, even though that squad was a historic underachiever. Wonder how it would feel for Self to win a NC with this team when it must feel a lot different in practice every day.
All about timing, which is what I’ve been saying about Pitt in the Big East this year.
There is a lot of “decent” in the Big East this year. Tournament-caliber teams, but not teams that jump out at you with NBA-quality players. When a guy like Dwight Hardy is in the running for POY, you know there’s a quality problem. Hardy will be lucky to make the NBA DL. This from a league that’s given us POYs like Allen,Hamilton, Butler, Murphy, Okafor, Foye, Blair etc. etc.
Certainly a league where you rarely get a night off and won’t get any if DePaul and USF get their program going, but still not a league that dazzled at all this year. We were missing the stars. Brooks and Hansbrough were tough, but not like past years’ standouts.
Give Dixon credit for always managing to be pretty good, even when everybody else is just decent.
That said, I would expect Pitt to be a 7 or 8 point favorite.
Agree with hugh, NCAA is down this year, with 15-20 really good teams, but no great ones, should make for a great tournament. In Lunardi’s bracket, Pitt is a #1 seed, Louisville #4, ND #2, St. John’s #4. On the court right now, how much better is Pitt than those teams? A tiny little bit better, maybe.
The 2009 Pitt team would be a prohibitive favorite this year.
“if Pitt plays like they did in the first half last night, ..”
Does KenPom keep a stat, “foot on the three point line shots made”? If so I bet Gil Brown is leading the country. For a 23 year old fifth year senior, he makes a lot of dumb/careless mistakes…..
Nas’ reverse-layup-airball was one of those moments that you just shake your head. In the first half, he did seem to be pressing and trying to do things that he just isn’t capable of doing.
McGhee had a terrible first half, but rebounded (pun intended) nicely in the second half. Most of his game is effort, and in the first half it just wasn’t there. He came to play in the second half.
I’ve always thought that the criticism of Dante Taylor has been a bit unfair, but something just isn’t right with him at this point. I suspect it may be the bum knee, but last night he was laboring to get up and down the court, and really struggled to finish around the hoop.
Another guy who is struggling is Woodall, but frankly, I’m most concerned with his defense (or lack thereof). He has been picking up a lot of fouls, many of which seem to be due to not moving his feet on defense and instead reaching with his hands. For a guy as quick as Woodall, he should be a better one-on-one defender. I don’t think the issue is confidence, so I wonder if it is concentration. They need more than 13 minutes a game from him.
As stated above, hopefully they can get healthy for the stretch run. That may be the biggest factor in how far they go.
On Taylor: The knees may be bothering him, but he really needs to get his head in the game. You can tell he really loves being one of the guys, but his attention seems to wander. During one timeout when he wasn’t in the lineup, he was checking out the USF dancers while Jamie was going over adjustments. On the 2nd half in-bounds dunk by Gilchrist – 2 of the 4 scored by USF during Pitt’s two runs – he made the wrong switch and left Nas hanging. Nas was so pissed, Jamie had to take him out of the game. You could hear him screaming “Dante missed the switch!” as he came to the bench. Good thing Pitt was well ahead or I think Nas would have killed him. It just shows that level of immaturity that was a knock on Taylor coming out of HS. Hopefully, he grows up soon, because you can see the kid has a lot of talent, and he loves playing.
On Woodall: It seemed like he was in a bit of a funk last night. Not sure what it is about, but you may recall he slumped after he started and then was relegated to the bench last year. On the other hand, USF is pretty long inside and he forced a couple of tough shots trying to get over top of the defenders. The fact that he couldn’t get anything to drop may have frustrated him, which can affect the overall play. It shouldn’t but it happens.
You could see the guys had a different mindset coming out of the locker room in the 2nd half. I told the USF fan sitting in front of me that Jamie must have reminded them which team was #4 in the country. They clearly play better when they force the tempo a bit and get runouts off of the defensive end.
Maybe it’s just the grind of the BE season and them trying to save energy for the tourney runs, but they seem all too willing to let the action come to them in the first half. Like most, I’d rather see the up-tempo play early rather than late, because the Tennessee game showed how that can backfire. Hoping they remember that lesson as we head into the games that really count.
I remember the play you describe with Taylor and Nas. Nas first confronted Taylor on the floor, then left the game (I think he might have picked up a foul on the play also). If it is an issue with focus with both him and Woodall, it really underscores the importance of having upperclassmen on your team. It also doesn’t help that Richardson also seems to struggle with defensive positioning.
I was talking to a buddy the other day and I mentioned that this is the time of the season when all of the Big East teams (not just Pitt) really seem to be looking forward to playing teams from outside of the conference. The games are just wars, and everyone is so familiar with each other that the element of surprise is pretty much gone. I swear, you can almost feel them counting down the games. I have to think that this grind is part of the reason the best teams seem to swoon a bit at the end of the regular season.
Hope they can get knees healthy and his head focused — not for this year, but for next year and the year after. Remember when folks on this site were wondering if Pitt would be lucky to keep him more than one year? Now we’re just hoping he can become a solid starter in this league.
Woodall, Taylor, Patterson, Moore (and Zanna, if he returns). All year we got excited about what a deep team this is and now my concern is how much you can play these guys without too much drop off. It feels more and more like Pitt’s post-season showing will be almost completely determined by how the 5 starters play.
All sports are cyclical. The 2009 UNC team had a bunch of NBA draft picks, but sans Ty Lawson, they all suck. Same with the 2006 UNC title team. The only good pro on that team is Ray Felton.
Taylor has got to stop the whining after every MFing time he gets called for a foul. Drive me insane.
Too bad Gil picked up that second foul, because I was loving what I was seeing: a turnaround, a spin move in the lane… Clearly these are things he could do on a regular basis, if he would just commit to it. When it comes to Gil, don’t give a darn about long 2s. As long as he is confidently taking shots, that’s more important in his case.
As others have said, I do think this team plays better when the game is up-tempo. They get into a better offensive rhythm, the rebounding is better, the defense seems more aggressive. Hopefully this is something we’ll see more of, particularly come March 17.
Taylor was almost splitting time with McGhee earlier in the season, and for the most part, he was doing well. Not much in the way of points, but he was grabbing rebounds and blocking a few shots, and generally playing with more energy. I’m just not seeing it as much the past couple weeks. I really hope he can get better quickly. Of all of the bench players that Hugh lists above, he and Woodall are the two most important this year. Perhaps we should even add Richardson now, as I think the offense is much less effective when Brown has to play the 4 to spell Nas.
First, Zanna and Taylor are #1 and #2 on Pitt for offensive rebounding percentage. I knew they were good, but I didn’t realize how important they are to Pitt’s offensive rebounding.
Second, he specifically mentions Taylor’s injuries as keeping him at “less than full strength”.
Third, he restated that Zanna will be out 3-6 weeks. I had kind of assumed that Zanna was done for the season, but I guess it is possible that he will be back for the NCAAs. I’m not sure how much he would offer at that point, but it is interesting to ponder.
Virgil – I agree that we lose a lot with Brown playing the 4. It’s not just on the offensive boards, but the whole flow of the offense is different. Brown is just not as physical a presence as either Nas, Zanna or even Richardson.
I think you’ll still see Woodall spelling Gibbs and Wanny, Taylor spelling McGhee, Patterson spelling Brown, and Richardson (or maybe Zanna) spelling Nas, but you won’t see more than two of them in the lineup together for any length of time – unless we’re up big of course.
