Hello, all. Sorry. I have been exceptionally tied-up in the offline world for the last few days. I’m even late to get this out there.
Lots of concerns. Lots of issues. And Pitt starts the Big East play on the road against a team that has seemingly had their number the last few years. Happy fun time.
The liveblog will start at 7 pm. The game is on ESPN2. There is no bowl in front of it to preempt it, so we have that going for us.
Moderated chat. Hopefully everyone knows how this works by now. Since this is short notice I’m skipping the usual preamble of warnings.
If you need to break the liveblog out from the site, Click Here.
Why is it that Gibbs can not get an open shot,even when ND is in zone? Why is Moore burried on the bench?
Why not get Gilbert in the game! Zanna is tooo soft.
Sit Moore completely..he and Taylor are wastes of uniforms. The rest is your choice…the inside bigs are all equally mediocre. Last but not least, someone please light a fire under their butts…I can understand a lack of talent but I have never seen a worse effort, night in and nigth out all the way back to the Willard teams.
Fat, dumb and lazy is no way to got through school boys!
This team has simply forgotten how to play basketball. In shaping this team to play Big East basketball, this team has forgotten their instincts. They don’t know what to do out there. When they make strides on defense; they forget how to shoot. When they were firing on all cylinders offensively, games were close because they couldn’t play defense.
here r the positives: …………(awkward silence)
I wonder if we can afford a five hundred season or a season out of the NCAA’s. without damage to the recruiting.
After the 19-12 Pitt lead, Brey totally outcoached Dixon(as Bobby Knight alluded to), as he has now the last 4 games. Coach needs to hire an asst. who actually can make in-game adjustments. Never one of his fortes. I think we really miss the guy who went to Marshall. The one who got hit with the coin in Hooterville.
Sleepy was a total non-factor again, 4 points and 4 rebounds and 4 personal fouls. Well at least he’s consistent ! lol
Nas took 13 shots leading the team, while I love his game, you can’t have him taking your most shots. Pitt shot 39% from the field, same as the Wagner game. Deficit was larger since ND shot 49% instead of Wagner’s 41%
Bottom line, these guys can’t or won’t defend and they don’t shoot well. Never a recipe for success.
And we really needed a good hoops season to forget about the football debacle of 2011 for awhile.
Sheesh. We will ever catch a break.
Four straight losses to Mike f’ing Brey. I did not think there was a worse college basketball coach than that turtlenecked tool. And Notre Dame is a pack of absolute stiffs. Plus two non-con losses. one to a coach with a career sub .500 with about 20 different teams, and the other to a high school coach. We cannot find a way to free up Ashton Gibbs for a few jump shots? Dixon’s teams have traditionally been among those with the lowest basketball IQ in Division I, but this team doesn’t even make it to double digits. And where the f was Malcolm Gilbert? Are we saving him for the tournament?
Jamie Dixon may be the greatest guy in the world. But he in way over his head, and his players strike me, with a few rare exceptions, as cocky punks.
Anyone seriously think a freshman from New Zealand, and an unathletic freshman point guard are going to make a difference next year?
The guy that our guy is guarding passes the ball. Our guy then relaxes, turns and watches where the ball goes. His man than cuts behind him for the basket and makes an easy lay-up on a back door play while our guy, time and time again, just says, “Golly. How did that happen?” Jamie along with all of his assistants can’t correct that???
Pitt’s perimeter defense was atrocious in this game. I watched disgustedly as Dante Taylor let Grant drain a 3. I saw Nas fail to fight over a screen to let Dragicevich drain a 3. I watched Tray Woodall be badly beaten off the dribble to allow Dragicevich take a kick to drain another 3. I saw nobody move out on Grant as he drained an NBA distance 3. That last one reminded of Butler’s Mack in the tourney last year.
On offense Pitt simply does not have a creator on this team like Brad Wanamaker and it’s killing them. Their spacing is bad on offense and nobody is consistently hitting outside shots. Nas and Patterson, who have at times demonstrated playmaking ability, are forcing plays on the inside. I think Patterson walked twice in the first half trying to create something in the lane. He forced shots in the lane in the second half.
Pitt does not have as good a perimeter defense as they had last year with Brown and Wanamaker. Gary McGhee, who became a one man defensive force, is not there to consistently clean the glass and clean up penetration. Even Gilbert Brown was probably more of a shot blocking presence than anybody Pitt is regularly playing this year now that Khem Birch has gone. Pitt may have collectively more athletic players this year, but they don’t play as smartly or together as McGhee, Wanamaker and Brown.
I surely do hope that Jamie can find a rotation that plays with desire, plays great defense, and crashes the glass. If he can do that I think this team has the capability to be a running team rather than a half court team. They seemed to build that 19-12 lead in the first half by getting out and pushing the ball. Pitt then failed to capitalize on some later chances and Notre Dame started to pressure on the perimeter defense and it all came together for ND.
I’m of a mind that it might be time to play Taylor, Zanna, and Nas in the front court. Let Gilbert sub for Taylor and Zanna. Let JJ Moore sub for Nas. That group should be able to clean the glass and provide some interior shotblocking presence. Let Gibbs, Woodall and Patterson work in the back court. One of those guys has to be able to make some shots and push the ball. Johnson and Wright can sub in as necessary. Patterson can also move up as necessary.
I’m rambling because it makes me feel better after having watched tonight’s debacle on TV just a few nights after having watched the Wagner game in person. I’ll be there on Sunday for Cincinnati and I hope Jamie finds some answers by then.
Have we ever come out of TO and played a different defense? Can’t remember or it’s been so infrequent if we have.
The way you get Gibbs open for a sec to launch, is you run him off a single or if need be a double screen on the baseline. Of course you need someone up top to run the offense while this play is developing.
‘The Pete’. Should be good for another 5 year run or so.
One last thing. Watch Gibbs shoot his jumper. He used to be able to go straight up (in a telephone booth so to speak). The last three games he has been drifting on his jumper…almost always to his right. A sign of let or ankle problems for sure.
I would never publicly criticize a basketball coach, especially ours at Pitt. Jamie will earn his pay this year!
I see a bunch of scared guys where not one of them wants to take the leadership role, no one saying “give me the damn ball”.
We’ve always had 2 or 3 of those type of guys.
I see a bunch of #3,#4 and #5 guys (no, not in the posistioning sense, in the leadership sense) looking around for #1 and #2.
They’re not there guys, you are it, someone needs to become the go to guy or go to guys.
Get some fire, geez, get pissed off!!!!!!
Fire away. You must mean panther74. I think everybody that’s hauling down salaries like all the coaches do are fair targets for criticism.
When he starts working for free, ie. charity work, then they’re off limits.
The only problem is CBC, the poor defense has been a season long problem. Remember the Rider game or the LaSalle game. Both teams shot like over 50% and Rider is a woeful 3-10 and LaSalle is no great shakes either.
These guys can’t play man defense. Why because usually the opposing players is better or has a higher basketball IQ.
How do you hide guys who can’t play man to man defense? You play zone or some sort of gimmick defense. Dixon should call Tim Grgurich (sp), king of the gimmick defenses.
Pitt makes “The Kennedy Center Honors”
Sweet Caroline “Let’s goPitt” …
Good point, but I believe that Jamie deserves a little slack, given what he’s done here at Pitt. There are major issues with this team, but I choose to believe that they will be corrected. Maybe we’ll peak in March this year instead of Jan-Feb.
http://lakersblog.latimes.com/lakersblog/2011/12/mike-brown-leans-on-tim-grgurich-for-advice.html
Granted, suddenly this team can’t shoot, at all. It’s so GD painful to watch, and there is nothing Dixon can do about that. But he deserves a good deal of blame here. His job is to maximize the talent he has and that is not being done.
Gibbs, too, deserves a good deal of blame. He is a liability on defense and exhibits no leadership.
And it’s clear at this point that Taylor is a bust. So Dixon is dealing with two major misses here in the front court, one McDonald’s American who has not panned out and another who left the team. So clearly Dixon has his work cut out for him. I’m just not seeing that he has the coaching chops to make up for the talent deficit on this team.
Perhaps there will be some miraculous turnaround and we’ll all look like a bunch of tremendous asshats. But at this point that seems to be very unlikely.
This sucks.
Wow buddy – so Jamie Dixon has been a complete stiff this whole time? Get a clue or get off this site.
I think you argued more for my point than against it.
Or maybe we’re all just asshats. (like that)
What’s amazing is we’ve had this 10 year run playing basically one defense for 10 years.
Not many in-game adjustments and how many years have we’ve been running this motion offense now?
Bodies in Motion.
So, suddenly after 10 years, teams are catching on to our defense…they’ve figured out our ‘secret.’ That seems likely.
They’re kind of frightening, I wake up in a cold sweat. Then I realize that’s all part of being a Pitt fan.
(guess that’s better than having nightmares of Keith Armstrong or Lucious Keese getting dunked on, dunked over and dunked around)
They had no problem at all with entry passes right into their bigs. Bobby Knight was amazed how good ND’s bigs were tonight, since he had seen them twice before this year and they were terrible.
Maybe just maybe ND’s bigs weren’t that good, our bigs are just that bad.
Why not press and play Johnson more. He has the best shot on the team. If teams go zone, play Johnson and Gibbs. Mix in some Woodall against a man to man. Wright is a good athlete, JJ is a good athlete. Nasir can run. Taylor can move well for a center. TZ too.
If we pressed ND, we would have stomped them. They had two athletes on their team, max. We will have to adjust to our strengths to be successful this year.
Haven’t seen you since you used to rev up the student section at Fitzgerald with your patented run & slide.
You were so good the cheerleaders got jealous.
haha.
Hard to be semi-positive after the last two games.
I just call them as I see them.
Actually I could see this team didn’t have it after Rider, LaSalle and Long Beach and I believe I noted my concerns on here. They had a glimmer when Khem was inserted into the lineup at the Palestra against Penn. When Sleepy returned, this team started on it’s downward spiral. Yes they won, but against no one that was any good.
In fact PITT’s non-con schedule was the weakest since 2000.
Would have been much better off had Sleepy left or whatever and Khem had stayed. That kid could really block shots and cause anyone who came into the lane to think twice before shooting. Plus his upside was enormous compared to Sleepy.
I will remember to be positive when watching the Compass Bowl as well. Like I posted here, Sunseri will be the Bowl MVP. Hey….pretty positive…. right.
Point blank, this team is underachieving and given its limited talent pool, that is going to translate into a bad year.
Sadly, Taylor (nice young man) is worthless 3 feet and further from the basket, Gibbs is out of position & trying to show NBA skills he simply does not have, Nas is trying to be more than the garbage player he is, our forwards suffer from the lack of a real post threat, Zanna plays like a guy who did not pick up the game until later and our guards are deer in the headlights.
Did Dixon forget how to coach? No.
But, he did lose his star recruit, his pg went down and his scorer all of a sudden wants to be Scoonie Penn.
2 or 3 underclassmen will be gone …1already … from this class….
JD will have his biggest challenge on and off the court. My question is this, does he have the stomach for it?
I don’t have an answer, but I have seen college coaches burn out….Howland @ UCLA, O’Brien @ OSU, Haskins @ Arkansas….it happens folks.
I will go to the games still but wonder…..mental toughness starts with the Head Coach. Does JD have it?
I’m going to stay positive and say ND always beats us like we always beat Syracuse.
Winning in college basketball occurs with either 1) a great coach (PITT’s case) or 2) NBA level players
As the saying goes, you can lead the horse to water but you can’t make the horse drink.
This Pitt basketball team lacks heart and the desire to win. Notre Dame played three sophomore guards and they just crushed us in the three point game. Maybe a big win down the schedule will be their epiphany, but… It’s going to be a long season for this Pitt basketball team.
Let’s face it, we have been spoiled; Jamie has produced championship caliber teams over the past five years and we now expect his teams to annually rank in the top 10. Given the distractions of this Pitt basketball team, maybe this will be a rebuilding year. Somewhere along the schedule this Pitt team will wake up and play up to their (top 25) billing.
HTP!
1) Dante had to make the Jr. leap ala Sam Young, Gray and McGhee… Ummm, not so much.
2) Gibbs had to continue to get his shots and shoot lights out. He is struggling with his shot for several games… maybe too much PG responsibility.
3) Tra also had to step up and run the show. He was playing well and then got hurt. He’ll always have his limitations.
4) Jamie’s best recruit ever, Khem Birch, had to step in and provide about 20 quality minutes a game… Ummmm, he’s at home crying to his mom that they play too rough at Pitt.
This was never going to be a great team, but could have been a pretty good team if the above fell into place. It hasn’t. So, this is what we are left with.
I have complete faith in Dixon. He can’t trade for a scorer or a player to step up and lead this team. That has to come from the players. But he can implement some of the good suggestions on this site. Play Dante, but he does not deserve to start. Play Gilbert. His redshirt is gone, and your inside D. sucks.
Need to create plays, screens, for Gibbs, because he can’t create on his own, and he can light it up. He and J Johnson have to step up with the 3′s. Nobody is scoring consistently. Lamar and JJ can score too, but….
Again, I have faith in Dixon, but didn’t we just go thru a lengthy discussion about changing your game strategy to fit your talent? And if he doesn’t, as posted above, I can live with one bad season until JD rights this sinking ship.
still LOL at Emel’s comment on Tiger Paul racing up and down the Field House floor. I was there for that. HTP
I don’t see a change in style/tempo happening, but I agree it could help — at least get some easy buckets. Right now Pitt is ranked in the 300s in terms of tempo.
The point that I think really hurts us is Point #2. IMHO the biggest concern going into this year was a LEGITIMATE 2nd scoring option. Tre needed to be that guy. He started off well, but you can see what happens when he is not in the game (Wagner) or if he is not at 100% (ND).
I would let Tre get healthy and start getting his legs under him before we all jump off the ship.
This can be a GOOD team if Tre gets healthy and gets his shot. Is this a great team, no…but that’s okay. Going .500 in the Big East will get you in the dance. We just need to get Tre healthy and his shot back. This team has some scrappers (like Nas) and some depth…and can certainly rebound.
I watched Cooley and Knight banging for ND last night. Pitt doesn’t have that kind of girth on the team this year. In years past Pitt has had McGhee, Blair, Gray, and Troutman. Basically immovable guys who weren’t particularly fast. While they aren’t listed that way, I perceive that Cooley and Knight have to be at least 20 pounds heavier than Taylor or Zanna. Cooley and Knight played quite a bit together. Zanna and Taylor played briefly together in the first half. Robinson has some bulk, but he’s not tall and he’s not a great jumper. This year we have longer, leaner (yes, Dante Taylor this year) players who can run a little bit. I think Jamie should put more size on the floor together for rebounding and shot blocking and become a fast breaking team. He’s got forwards who can run, he should use them.
Taylor = miss, Epps = miss. Those two are incontrovertible.
Birch = miss because part of your job is psychology and understanding the mentality of each recruit. If you don’t realize ahead of time that Skerry leaving is a problem for Birch, then you’re shortsighted.
Wright = miss. I’ve seen enough to know that he might be a useful defender off the bench, but the offense is never going to be there and he’s not a starter in the BE or ACC.
JJ Moore = miss. He’s just too clueless on defense to ever get real minutes. As good as an athlete as he is, how did Pitt ever think he had enough upstairs to play at this level?
I can’t call Zanna a miss because he was always a project. Robinson and Patterson are fulfilling their limited potential. Gibbs has exceeded his. John Johnson has solid potential and looks a good bet to achieve it.
I have argued many times before that Woodall was a miss and I know that many on this board disagree. If you disagree, simply ask yourself if you’d take Woodall over most of the PGs at the country’s elite programs. (I consider Pitt one of the country’s elite programs, so I think we deserve an elite PG.) If you would, more power to you….
That’s a long string of misses at some very key positions. Tough to survive that many miscalculations and keep a program elite.
* Pitt has run the same 1-4 motion offense for the last 9 years with the same cuts, screens and passes. While JD sees it a lot like the Green Bay sweep,other teams seem to know every motion and cut in advance.
* In order to play good man defense,communication is essential especially on switches. You either switch with every cut or you fight thru. I see Pitt doing a little of each which leaves players wide open. I am 61 and can still make 8-10 from 3 point land if no one guards me. ND did the same.
* I can explain away most all of the last two losses except the lack of “Guts”
heart and “wantto” that the team has shown.
On Khem Birch, I did some digging and spoke to a history professor at Pitt who had Khem and a few of the other players in his class. From day 1, Khen did not sit with or associate in any way with the other players. I don’t know what that means, but it sure is weird!
Jamie apparently is to stubborn. Also it would be for the benefit of the program if Dixon reached out to Birch. Coaches ought to know the difficult transition it is from high school to college especially when a player’s expectations are high – he has to be coached differently.
I do believe Adams is the real thing but without Birch at strong forward his presence will be dimminished. In my opinion Birch should of stayed at SF when Robinson came back. By February my guess is that Birch would have been far superior than Naz in every phase of the game.
we know JD is a good coach so what is going on.
if this season is in the tubes than sit taylor down and play gilbert.
We all know that Jamie can coach, so there is no reason to think that he has forgotten how to coach. Each of these players brings their own set of skill sets and attitudes with them.
I have every confidence that if any coach can get this team turned around back in the right direction, it is Jamie Dixon.
HAIL TO PITT!
Although Pitt’s game last night was troublesome is a number of ways (Senior leadership??) just remember Pitt crushed UConn this exact same time last year at the Pete…UConn ended up ok.
The comparsion is there is time to right the ship being so early in the Big East season..it’s a young team.(like UConn was last year)..I truly believe they’ll only go up from this point.
The key though is Gibbs..he has to start making shots…if he’s missing that carries over to everyone else because he is suppose to be the go to guy this year.
Agree that Nas is a warrior and deserves to play. Birch did quit, but you can’t get a player off the waiver wire or in a trade in college hoops, so if there is ANY chance he can get the quitter back, I hope he pursues it. No lack of faith in Jamie here, but maybe he should chat with Dick LeBeau about his defense.
The recruiting misses start and end with one player, Dante Taylor. He is so abysmally bad for a McDonald’s All American. It is inexplicable that he was that highly rated out of high school. Zanna and Taylor have the worst hands that I have ever seen. If Taylor was a real talent, then we would have been able to mask a lot of the other recruiting mistakes. He isn’t a real talent. He is a scrub.
Birch leaving was a devestating blow. Hopefully Pitt can get a decent player with the extra scholarship. Coach Dixon miscalculated the kids tolerance for pain. The loss can’t be dismissed. It is painful and may have ramifications that last beyond this season.
I can’t wait for Gibbs eligibility to expire. I hate his game and his body language on the court. He gets beaten so badly on defense that it just horrifying to watch. Pitt wasn’t going to do much with Gibbs being the focal point of the offense. See the postseason performance the last two years for evidence. #3 and #1 seeds shouldn’t lose in the second round.
Brad Wannamaker was so good that he allowed Pitt to get away with running multiple set plays for Gibbs. Without him it is a struggle on both ends. Wannamaker did everything for this team last year.
The mental toughness is a part of it. Note that aside from Rider (who is horrific), every game in which we have trailed by a semi-significant margin (i.e., more than 1 possession), we have lost. Many teams play harder or more freely when behind, as pressure has been removed. This team plays with even less confidence, with less effort, and no intelligence.
Taylor should be planted to the bench. He won’t be. He will get to start again on Sunday. Nevermind the fact that he is not good at basketball. He is a junior. He paid his dues and blah, blah, blah. Nevermind that Gilbert changes the game on the defensive end. Taylor does no such thing.
Cam Wright gets to play over John Johnson even though he is a turnover machine and not much of a defender right now. Clearly John Johnson has more talent, but nevermind. Cam has been in the program an extra year.
JJ Moore has athleticism that may be able to help Pitt. But instead we get to watch Lamar Patterson struggle to defend because of his below average athleticism. Nevermind that Pitt needs athletes on defense. Let’s watch Lamar get blown by for 30 minutes a game.
Dixon is always a big practice guy. So Patterson plays over J.J. because Patterson practices better than J.J. Or at least that is what I’ve heard.
I don’t think the Pitt team lacks fire or effort, but instead they are young players playing scared. Guys like J.J. are looking over their shoulders after every mistake and thinking they will get pulled from the game.
I don’t think it is clear that Cam Wright is less talented than John Johnson. If you look at their scouting bios, they are about equal. ESPN had Cam as a 93 and Johnson as a 91. Both had offers from big time schools.
I still stick to my contention that Dante Taylor is playing out of position. He will never be a physical center and he was listed as a forward recruit coming out of high school.
I don’t care what the rankings say for Johnson and Wright. One can play at this level right now, the other has a lot of work to do to be effective.
I suspect he is trying to discover the person inside his body.
Wish him well. Some people are given gifts they are not emotionally equipped to use.
Neither Taylor nor Zanna are physical post players and will not get it done no matter who is the point guard. A big-strong center (or other muscular inside player) is by far this team’s biggest liability.
Gilbert is the only player on the squad with the physical potential to fill the muscle void in the post. Unless he is injured, he needs to play and learn on the job. If that can’t happen, or Gilbert isn’t up to it, this season will be an NIT year.
