Sorry about the lateness of getting this out. Guests coming this evening so a frenzied day of cleaning. I’m already catching plenty of grief for taking 2+ hours out to watch the game at 4pm on ESPN. But, really, the wife should be used to it.
Georgetown has been a bit of surprise team this year. Not too much was expected from the Hoyas except middle of the pack, bubble team. Lots of youth and John Thompson III has not had his young players do too much in the past. This year, is different. Lots of early contributions and the Hoyas are in the upper quadrant of the Big East.
Tray Woodall being back has the offense looking a lot sharper. The defense still leaves a lot to be desired. Probably going to have to live with that, this late in the season.
Liveblog rules. are the usual.
If you need to break the liveblog out from the site, Click Here.
Otherwise, just a little lower.
In all seriousness, I’m a little shocked at the line. One good thing about the down year, my expectations have been lowered to the point where winning isn’t the important thing. I’m just looking for improvement.
Pitt: I’ve just learned that Pitt head coach Paul Chryst will add Inoke Breckterfield as defensive line coach. Breckterfield coach the defensive line this past year at UCLA. Jim Mora had retained Breckterfield as an operations assistant, but Breckterfield has opted to join the staff at Pitt.
Zeise said that he hasn’t heard aything from Pitt so it still unconfirmed
High quality Pitt man. and by the way, he was spot-on when he complained that Graham threw Tino under the bus.
Let’s see what happens.
n board for what should be a most interesting Panther Spring Camp. On to the hoops: Yes, I too, noticed Dante picked up his play toward the end of a most unexpected win. Finally, Robinson and Patterson looked like I thought they would look, pre=season. The Mountaineers will be a tough hurdle on Monday. They should be seething after being rooked at Syracuse today. Don;t know anything about the alleged defensive line coach. Please give us more data if or when ut is announced. Thanks. Rev. George from Columbus.
is breckterfield but if he was the one all a long he could have been here weeks ago.
may be the outher man changed his mind.
but i was wrong so there it is.
Zanna can become an excellent SF he is quicker than most SF as shown by his explosion off the dribble to the hoop. Both he and Taylor could complete 70% more of their offensive rebounds playing with a true ceneter.
Woodall is not a scorer and is limited in his ability to complete penetration but he does have good vision and can breakdown down the defense by getting into the lane. He never will be a threat from the outside.
Neither Gibbs nor Woodall can guard on the perimeter or are strong enough to fight through screens. What I have seen on tape Robinson at 6’2″ powerfully built and a determined defender
Robinson is a smart player without the skill level of Taylor, Zanna, Patterson, or Moore but what he has learned that the others have yet learned and need to to take the next step (Gibbs does this well to/experience that we should see from the others next year)is when your defender turns his back on you exploit it and cut to the basket instead of playing like when they wer in high school and attepting to beat their man off the dribble. Robinson smartly scores all his hopes this way. If Moore could learn this as Julius Page did at guard years ago the Peterson could be raining dunks.
Pitt’s present weakness is its inabiltiy to match up inside because they have no center. I saw enoungh in the last two games that the addition of Adams and Robinson to say this team will be a threat next year.
Much of Sims game today would have been negated by a 7’0″ atheletic center with a long reach and quick feet. Pitt would have won by 20 with Adams at center. Also Robinson is a better shooter than Woodall and will torch opposing teams sloughing off to stop Johnson getting easy looks.
This team could be, even without Woodall while he was out, at least 18-5 or 17-6 if Dixon had recruited a true center, not any All-American who like McGhee had no offense but had the body and the experience of always being a post player. Pitt recruited no true center since McGhee until this year and Gilbert is a project. If Gilbert or someone like him came two years ago this year would be different.
Next year Adams will be an impact player and hopefully Gilbert will be ready to spell him. Adams should be a double-double, Zanna/Taylor at SF, Patterson/Moore SF, Woodall, Robinson point, Johnson SG. A top ten team. This will be an atheletic team, much quicker than and bigger than any previous team.
With Chyrist, Adams, and Robison Pitt ought to be like the Pheonix rising out of the desert of this year, the Second Coming.
Many good points and observations, but I would like to see some more good basketball this year, like we saw today. I also thought the Panthers played well at Marquette and at Syracuse in losing efforts. I’m not saying that I expect them win the rest of the games, that’s unrealistic. I would like to see them play well and be competive and finish the season well.
Just let me know and I’ll get it up there. haha
All kidding aside. What a game for our Panthers today over #9 Georgetown and in 2nd place in the BE. (or at least they were)
And just when everyone was ready to toss good ole one legged Nas off a cliff, the young man comes up HUGE today. HUGE. We gotta remember he’s been playing on bad wheels all season. Great game from him and also Lamar Patterson had his best game as a Panther. Hopefully many more to come. Another nice effort from Woody in his comeback, the team is certainly a lot sharper with him in the lineup which only goes to emphasize the point of having a good point guard. Zanna was adequate on the boards and Dixon cut down the minutes of some bench players. Smart move Coach, shorten the bench. (I think I’ve said that more than once)
Play like this and this team could still make a run… maybe even for the Dance. Or what would be very sweet, win the BE tournament for the auto bid.
H T P !
V E V !
Against Gtown most if not all his points came on backdoor cuts (Dixon took him out of the foul lane area on the zone -good move [put Patterson there])taking advantage of of the bad defensive positioning. Also with Woodall he had a guard who could see the floor and make the pass.
As for Pitts weak perimeter defense I agree the guard do struggle with penetration but more importantly because of its weak inside defense (this is not measured by rebounds). Because Pitt has no center the forwards and the guards have to double down to contest the oppositions center and then the ball is kicked back out for an open three.
This did not happen with Blair or McGhee because they were strong enough to defend inside. It will not happen next year with Adams with his large wing span and 7 ft. frame. He will be able to defend the lane without teamates collapsing to compensate.
I’ll be interested on seeing how things go tomorrow night at WVU — I actually don’t think it’s an awful matchup, except really for Jones. But he causes problems for everybody. He’s a really good SF. Or was that an SF? I get them confused. Haha.
Great to see Robinson and Gibbs back to form when not trying to do to much. Awesome game plan by Coach.
Zanna and Patterson just keep getting better, can’t say enough about them. Even Taylor came through down the stretch when we needed him most. If only Moore wouldn’t have hung on to that hoop. Sure like to see more of Moore’s skill set.
Georgetown looked sluggish and missed a lot of shots, like to say it was cause of our intensity, time will tell.
In any case yesterday was great fun. It couldn’t have happened at a better time with Adams, Football recruits,Wanny and ESPN in the House.
Hail to Pitt.
From Dokish.
“As I suspected they would do, due mostly to his lack of judgement on twitter when he criticized some of the decisions of the program, among other things, the Panthers decided to let Sto-Rox CB Marzett Geter go on his merry way. Geter is now the fourth player to part ways with Pitt since Paul Chryst has taken the job. A fifth changed schools before Chryst was hired. Two more, Adam Pankey and Myles Hilliard, are wavering, and there are still others who may not eventually be signed for one reason or the other.”
This doesn’t really suprise me. I kind of had the feeling his days were numbered after he lipped off on twitter. Looks like we’ll be losing a couple of more too by the sounds of it. Wonder who Chryst will replace them with, if anybody. These next couple of days should be real interesting.
but first i noticed something all the commits that are left or that have been added are 6 foot or taller except the davis twins i guess the coach likes tall players.
You can see that the game has slowed down for Patterson. It clearly has not for Moore. I like the aggression, but he forced those baseline drives and still isn’t hitting the open jumpers. Dixon gave him the time in the first half and unfortunately he did not make the most of it. Still want to see him on the floor, but you notice that come the second half, he’s mostly on the pine.
Dixon did a good job yesterday, but one thing that just infuriated me was about midway through the second half, maybe, Woodall on the bench, shot clock ticking down and who does the ball go to? Gibbs. End result? Blocked three-point attempt and an intentional foul call on Gibbs trying to prevent the break away. That could have been a HUGE swing in that game, had Gtown converted bot FTs and hit a 3. Gibbs should never have the ball in his hands in those moments.
Oh, and Adams did not seem too pleased with his soft pretzel. “For $3.50 I got this?”
“JDiPaola_TribJerry DiPaola
Pitt received a verbal commitment today from New London (Wisc.) O lineman Gabe Roberts (6-4, 295), who could have walked on at Wisconsin.”
For those interested, deaysean rippy is going to commit to a school tonight. Chris dokish said that tonight he will tell the coach but he doesnt know when he will make the decision public. I have to wonder if getting rid of geter hurts pitts chances. I hope geter is mature enough to not talk crap about pitt to rippy and i hope that even if he does, rippy is mature enough to realize that he needs to make his own decision and not go to be swayed by another bitter kid who made a dumb decision.
Roberts will be a project at best …he, like Hester, seems to have size but is not well recruited. Pankey is still a possibility … Pitt and WVU are is choices.
Finally, look for Bam Bradley to come to Pitt
As for rippy, its hard to figure out where hes going. A month ago he had almost no interest in wvu, now theyre in his top 3. Hes had pitt as a favorite through the entire recruiting process but who knows.
But, today Cook write a piece that stayed within its own scope and gave Dixon serious credit. Especially telling is the quote from Mike Rice about Dixon being the most consistent person he has ever met.
I will be candid, I wondered if we were going to witness the College basketball version of Steve Blass not being able to find the strike zone, and we might never win again. Sounds silly until you see it happen, then it is worse than horrible.
Cook captured the “why” in the assertion “why Jamie Dixon will not morph into a loser”. Answer, in spite of his good nature, he is extremely confident and comfortable in his own skin.
him play a few times he has the build the hight the speed and all that but makes very few plays
he has all the numbers but that is all.
one pitt site has him still here the outher has him gone did he flunk out or what.
6 foot 1 200 pounds .
no offer schools that were looking AKRON CONNECT
VILLONOVA BUT NO OFFER really is this the best we can do.
Yes Tino sucked this year but just think how much less he would have sucked if he had a solid wall of big uglies in front of him all season. Those drive killing QB sacks all season could have been minimized with a stout OL that would have given him the luxury of time for his frantic tiptoeing around in the backfield until he finally released the ball.
We need quality bodies in those offensive trenches, that was a major weak spot last season.
This team IS making the tournament, and I’m not talking about the NIT.
Tino hanging onto the ball too long and running like a turtle in ashell is why the offensive line looked bad.
Give a QB that can think on his feet and the offensive line would look have decent.
Mr. Guy is listed at 6ft7″/280 lbs and as far as I can determine he has not received any offers.
???? What, no offer from Univ of NH, Maine or Mass.
Smart kid(??) with money(??) why not a nice New Hampshire college like Dartmouth?
Maybe he is a dunce and other schools have passed.
Of all the prospects that have been mentioned (I don’t care how many ****) he is without a doubt somewhere in the twilight zone.
you have to have some kind of gage in every thing or perhaps ypu want some one with a high school eduction to run pitt. some times i think you just like to argue abought any thing that you can.
in the 1st game, Shaler beat Lincoln School 57-52, led by JP Holtz’s 14 pts
you tell me if you think they will be haveing bad years there has to be a gage for every thing
can you find a nr that will be grest sure but what would you like on pitt 8 players who are 5 stars and 4 who are 4 stars or 12 players who are 2 stars if you tell me 2 stars you are nuts .
They said he is “under the radar”
VERRRRY INTERESTING kid.
Is this a defensive mechanism kicking in, maybe a bit, but, with Chryst’s track record with 3′s and a few 4′s, I would definitely take that.
Remember, if he wins games, goes to a big bowl and becomes top 20 relevant, i.e. maybe a Pitt-Fla.St game, or a Pitt-Va. Tech game has a little national relevance, we will be getting the bigger star players.
I feel the best about Pitt football than I have in years. Could I (we) get burned again, sure, but I doubt it with this guy.
Also, we’re a resilient bunch, whatever happens, we’ll be here.
I have to say, I’m pretty pumped up right now.
Scout had Darrelle Revis rated as a 3-star player. He was like their 46th best corner, nationally, and was rated their 25th best player just in PA. Rivals also had him as a 3-star corner, in their mid-30′s among national corners. Oops.
Conversely, Bostick was rated relatively higher, which I’ve heard some say was the product of him having a monster year during his HS sophomore season, and neither of the sites ever downgraded him.
Dion Lewis: Scout had him as a three-star RB, ranked 70th nationally at his position. Oops.
Andrew Taglianetti in 2008 was ranked a 2-star CB Scout, who also had him ranked 114th among CB’s nationally. His only other offers were Toledo and Towson. That same class also produced Shayne Hale (Scout 5-star, ranked 3rd-best DE in the country). Again, oops and oops. Who’s been the more productive Division I football player?
I get the point…you’d always rather have a class with more talent that’s expected to do well. But these rankings fail to take into account the type of system a kid is going into, the kid’s ability and – more importantly – DESIRE to be coached up at the next level, and the abilities of the coaches to get him to that level and utilize him correctly.
Here’s one man’s evaluation (mine):
+Great size, tall (7ft ish), long arms, big hands, not a bean pole.
+Moves well, good feet, good lateral movement. Looks and moves like an athlete, not a 7 footer.
+Great hands, can catch in traffic, can grab rebounds and hold them.
+Very good court sense. He lets the game come to him, doesn’t force things, makes few (if any) mistakes. Understands where he needs to be and gets there. Very productive.
+Really, really good passer. Especially on the high post. He consistently hit the open guy.
+Free throw stroke looked really good. Good touch, good follow throw, good rotation, good balance, good results.
+Good on the pick and roll. A couple time he set a ball screen and rolled to the hoop, caught a questionable pass and scored the basket.
+Good natural rebounder. In good position, good hands and did I mention 7 feet tall?
??He seems to lack explosiveness. A good jumper, but not a natural quick leaper (ie Birch). He blocked a few shots, but he wasn’t more than a couple inches off the floor.
??Post moves. Saw a baby hook (missed), but not much else in the post. He had much smaller dudes guarding him, could/should have killed them.
??Defense, hard to tell if he can play great D. He had a couple hedges on the high ball screen that looked text book, but a couple others that were weak. My guess is that Jamie will have him playing good enough, he has the tools. But he is not the kind of shot blocker that Gilbert and Birch are. And a couple times a 6’8″ athlete blew by him like he had his feet in cement.
??Mid range jumper, looked good in warm ups, didn’t try it in the game.
??Intensity, competitiveness. He could have scored 30 if he had asserted himself. There’s a fine line between “letting the game come to you” and “coasting”. My take, he was on the right side of the line, but….
After watching him play one game, I think he’s the best prospect Pitt has had since Charles Smith. He is way ahead of Gilbert and has a lot more to his game than Birch. He is 6 inches taller than Blair.
My gut; he’s not one and done, but probably two and done. It will depend on how quickly he develops some offense or gets stronger, more explosive.
He won’t be a savior for Pitt next year, but he will absolutely contribute a lot. Certainly more than Birch did in the time he was here.
Can’t wait to see him in Greentree.
and we say the coach will coach up that 2 star or that nr and some times they do and this coach is good at it
but if we had 7 players with 5 stars and 3 players with 4 stars we would be danceing in the streets and shouting from the roof tops and you know it.
and we dont so we make the best of it and that is ok but it counts if you do so dont prentend outher wise. may be we will get there in 2 years then we can crow abought it.
There is a rule many DC area sports fans know: never count out a DeMatha team until the final whistle. Behind a lineup filled with four Stag guards, DeMatha began to force turnovers, grab scrappy offensive rebounds and — the main thing — get stops. James Robinson finished with a season-high 25 points and scored 13 of those in the fourth.
If the game plan of Robinson taking over in the paint was instituted after halftime instead of the fourth quarter, DeMatha probably leaves Bender Arena with a solid comeback victory. Robinson is one of the best distributors in the DMV, but he’s also the strongest point guard pound-for-pound. He hit nine of his ten free throws too. He’s going to be an excellent point guard at Pittsburgh, but until then, I’d make him my go to scorer.
Neither Robinson or Adams appear to be from the pampered high school merry-go-round and AAU school. Robinson is a multi-skilled guard from one of the best highschool programs and Adams is a natural athelete of immense size only surpassed by his potential.
I think they are both Jamie Dixon style players with the basketball ability at their position of any program. If given the opportunity to learn from experience getting plenty of minutes in Nov-Jan.(taking so early season losses)Pitt can, I hope, reap the benefit of this recruiting class.
There are obviously limitations to what you can interpret from the games at Greentree, but it can be a good barometer, IMO. Based on that, I would not be surprised to see Durand Johnson make some important contributions next year. He will need to learn to play D and within the confines of the offense, but from what I saw at Greentree last summer, he is athletic, can slash to the rim, and has good range on his jumper.
Looking forward to Greentree already, and hopefully a good run the rest of BE play.
Steve – the simple answer on Durand Johnson, he is a skinny, 18 year old, 6’6″ SF/wing on a team loaded with SF/wings who don’t have a redshirt available and who are physically more mature. Numbers game. FWIW – He is going to be a major contributer during his career, dude can shoot the rock.
Hail to Pitt!
Thus, if anything, Pitt letting go of Geter may have helped.
Dokish doess has have more insider info than we have but he is also a very paasionate fan … which sometimes clouds his judgements (like mots of us).
They played well in the dome. Should have beaten ‘cuse.
Kevin Jones and the big Turk will be tough matchups for us. Jones will eat up Patterson and Robinson.
Not too optimistic.
