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November 12, 2011

Open Thread: Pitt-Ville

Filed under: Football,Open Thread — Chas @ 10:52 am

DVR delays continue. My wife informed me the other day that I am now the treasurer for the co-op preschool for our son.

Of course I am. The fact that there is a meeting at 11 am today is not at all inconvenient.

The game is on WTAE in Pittsburgh. Elsewhere it is on various syndicated outlets as the Big East Game of the Week. Along with ESPN3.com.





Yes Dan-o, it was a good weekend.

Even the philes got beat in Creepy Valley. haha

Comment by EMel 11.13.11 @ 9:19 pm

As far as I know, all man to man defenses are switching since you’re going to get picked on some plays. All you do is call out the pick and say ‘I got him’, left or right. Simple playground stuff, these guys should have learned when in AAU.

Comment by EMel 11.13.11 @ 9:26 pm

Sorry Dan I we disagreed and as you implied it must be because my opinion has no merit. Next time I will simply focus on your comments and reinforce your opinon. Then you can stop attacking my personal opinions.

Comment by DRW 11.13.11 @ 10:18 pm

You don’t have to switch on every pick. You can fight through the pick.

Comment by Omar 11.13.11 @ 10:25 pm

“AAU”, “playground” and “defense”. That’s a good one EMel.

I’d be really surprised if we didn’t have a loss or two in non-con, but I think the future is bright with these guys.

When’s the last time we shot 30+ 3’s in a game?

Comment by cnorwoodaz 11.14.11 @ 1:46 am

Maybe a little zone to mix things up

Comment by alcofan 11.14.11 @ 8:08 am

DRW, it’s the same personal opinion every time. Don’t you get it, Todd Graham does not want a 6’4″ or 6’5″ pocket passer???? That’s not who he is looking for. He doesn’t want Marino or Elway.

Maybe he should, but with his system, he is not looking for anyone like that.

Maybe he won’t pan out here, I don’t know, but he does not run a pro set offense. So, to keep bringing it up, absolutely baffles me. Why would he recruit a big, strong armed qb, if he allready has one sitting on the bench?? Obviously, not what he wants. Whether you like it or not, he will be here at least 3 or 4 years, probably more if he ends up winning.

Even if he was looking for that, he allready has a top ten qb recruit, from Tennessee, are you aware of that??

It was a good win, away from home, the offense looked like it was being run well, even without his type of players, and I was just making comment, that you were the only person who did not enjoy the win, and came on with a negative point of view on here.

Comment by Dan 11.14.11 @ 10:06 am

A couple thoughts on the defense last night:

First, it was dreadful. Worst I’ve seen since the days when Ralph Willard was patrolling the sidelines.

The Rider shooters, pretty much the whole team, were tall, 6’5″+. Our short guards didn’t do a good job of contesting the threes. The close outs on the shooters didn’t bother them at all, they just shot over Gibbs and Woodall.

Jamie went to a zone and that just made things worse. They were pretty passive in it. Again, Pitt’s guards are too short, too slow to really play good zone.

In the post game interview Jamie alluded to changing the defense in the last 4 minutes. He wouldn’t elaborate on the change. But it did look like he told them to switch everything on the perimeter and stay closer to their man off the ball. As a result, Rider got some mismatches with our guards on their bigs, but Rider didn’t make us pay. And we contested the three’s better.

Certainly, Jamie will correct the mistakes and coach ’em up to play better team defense. The scary part is defense is a lot about effort and it looked like the effort was there. This may just be a capability issue.

In the post game interview, Jamie said that the poor defense is to be expected this time of year. That sounds like a little whistling by the graveyard to me.

The good news, the offense will be really good. This team moves the ball better than any i’ve seen in a while. Once they get Taylor and Zanna involved, look out.

Comment by boubacar aw 11.14.11 @ 10:31 am

Maybe this will finally be the year that we play uptempo and try to ouscore the other team … hey, Jamie can call it ‘High Octane’ or ‘Pedal to the Metal’

Comment by wbb 11.14.11 @ 10:51 am

Boubacar and wbb, where does Cameron Wright fit into this, this year, or not fit in???

Comment by Dan 11.14.11 @ 11:19 am

He’s a 6’4″ or so guard, right, or is he gonna be a swingman??? Wondering how his defense is going to be, and if he can play defense at guard, to at least sometime give us a bigger defensive presence at guard???

Comment by Dan 11.14.11 @ 11:21 am

” I love Dick Groat but he’s not a Curtis Aiken.” from what I read and understand, my money is on Groat in a one-on-one game if both were in their prime. (Groat’s jersey is hanging at Cameron Indoor)

Comment by wbb 11.14.11 @ 11:22 am

I believe Wright played a lot at the 3 last night .. I may be wrong. I didn’t see the game, just followed much of it on CBSports Gametracker .. and it appeared that there were a few times when Woodall, Gibbs and Wright were on the court at the same time, but noit sure if that web site is always accurate.

Maybe someone who saw the game can clarify

Comment by wbb 11.14.11 @ 11:34 am

Cameron Wright doesn’t give you much at this point. He’s OK at many things, not good/great at any. He’s tall enough and athletic enough to guard three positions, but he isn’t a defensive stopper yet. He doesn’t pass the ball as well as Patterson or Johnson. He doesn’t shoot real well either. He is a decent rebounder. I see him as an adequate fill in guy, not a regular contributer. Johnson will eventually be the third guard. IMHO.

Comment by boubacar aw 11.14.11 @ 11:35 am

wbb – You’re right, Wright played a lot of three. Patterson was in foul trouble and Moore is clearly in Jamie’s dog house.

Re: Moore

hugh green brought this up earlier, but I think it bears repeating. Moore just doesn’t seem to have a feel for the game. He doesn’t move the ball well, he takes bad shots and he doesn’t seem to get where he needs to be on defense.

Comment by boubacar aw 11.14.11 @ 11:40 am

I envision Cameron Wright as maybe a similar type player to the Antonio(?) Graves kid a few years ago.

He’s going to be a project and when Graves was a senior he wasn’t bad, made some big shots for Pitt.
In fact if we get as much from him as we did from Graves, that will be a plus.

I said this last night and a couple weeks ago, this very small backcourt is going to be a real problem against team’s with bigger guards. Neither Woodall & Gibbs are good defenders to begin with which adds to the problem.

Also you saw last night that the shooting %’s for both Gibbs & Woodall were a lot lower than against Albany. Again probably because they had to shoot over taller guards. At this point, Nas is the only go to guy on the blocks and he had just a great game last night. 9 for 9 FG’s and over 20 points. Are we expecting to him to perform like that every game? Because at this point, he better.

Coach has to make a point of trying to get the ball into Taylor or Birch more, we have to get more than a few points and rebounds from them.
Sleepy did awaken a little in the latter stages of the game. Guess he got some winks on the bench and came back energized. haha

Comment by EMel 11.14.11 @ 12:06 pm

I think Robert Morris beat Rider 83-56 or so.
They are going to be confident when we play them.

I didn’t see the game last night, what was Taylor’s defense like inside?

Comment by EMel 11.14.11 @ 12:12 pm

DRW and Emel make some very valid points. We all enjoy a win, but let’s not kid ourselves, L’ville not a very good defense (like S. Florida)…gave up 500+ yds to somebody in the last game or two…and 21 points is nothing to crow about.

Given our talent and schedule, I believe — and others here have said it too — we should be 9-1 or 10-0, but for Tino’s play and some really suspect coaching decisions…Good coaches work with what they have on hand, not what they want. Sure, recruit ‘your guys’ and implement your ‘system’ when you can, but don’t chuck a season away sulking and being stubborn.

Tino has made so many bad decisions and throws that its no longer about what type of QB should play, its simply about finding one who is competent and doesn’t kill so many drives…too much to ask?

Comment by Matt N. 11.14.11 @ 12:59 pm

Rider really had no interest in going inside. So Taylor wasn’t really called upon to play great post defense. He did ok on the boards and at the end of the game blocked a shot or two.

On my list of concerns, Dante Taylor is LOW right now. He and Robinson need to find some chemistry. Dixon does need to make an effort to get Taylor touches. As we’ve all said for years on this site, the offense flows much better when the ball goes inside out. Robinson, Patterson, Woodall and Gibbs are all good passers. Taylor and Zanna ARE MUCH MORE SKILLED than past centers. They just need experience playing together.

Taylor had a few nice post moves last night, one real good drive to the left from the high post, the whole offense needs to get him the rock.

Comment by boubacar aw 11.14.11 @ 1:35 pm

Taylor’s foot work looks better. He did a better, still not great, job of defending the high ball screen. That high ball screen is tough, it took Gary four years to figure it out…if he ever did? Dante has quicker feet, so does Talib.

Comment by boubacar aw 11.14.11 @ 1:38 pm

I don’t think anyone is kidding ourselves. At this point however, winning on the road anytime is a good win. Winning against a team that just beat WVU on the road is a good win.

That’s all, no big deal, I don’t think anyone on here thinks we’re playing LSU for all the marbles. Just a nice win.

Coming up on game 11 of the season, if anyone is still waiting for Mark Myers or a change to a different offense, I think we allready have the answer.

Comment by Dan 11.14.11 @ 2:36 pm

Thanks for the rundown, boubacar aw. Couldn’t catch the game last night because of family commitments. Hope to see them live when I’m in town for the Thanksgiving holiday.

I’m not too worried about the rotation and who’s getting PT right now. As most of us know, Jamie will mix things up a lot during the non-con portion of the schedule and start settling into his rotation as he gets closer to conference play. I’m sure with all of the newcomers we’ll see even more of that this year.

Also, his preparation to limit the other team’s strengths and exploit their weaknesses is a huge key to his success over the years. Since you don’t have much on some of these early opponents, there are going to be surprises, like Rider giving Pitt more of a game than expected. Again, no reason to get too concerned at this point.

I agreed with the concern over the backcourt defense when several posters brought it up, and I still do. Woodall’s too small and Gibbs works too hard on the offensive end to be anything more than an adequate defender. Good that it showed early. I’m sure Jamie will get someone ready – Johnson, Wright, or even Patterson – to be the guard stopper on defense when needed. We’ll be fine.

Comment by TampaT 11.14.11 @ 5:07 pm

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