That has been my overall reaction to the final regular season game. That loss to UConn. Losing the game wasn’t a terrible surprise. It was on the road where Pitt has been 1-6 in the Big East coming into the game. UConn’s senior day. Jim Calhoun made an emotional and big return to the bench to help give UConn an emotional lift on top of it.
Heck, even much of the way the game went was familiar to both teams. Pitt got off to a rocky start. Struggling to score and to take care of the ball. My god, even UConn used a press on Pitt because they just haven’t handled it well. Pitt made a strong run in the second half, but couldn’t sustain it in the final minutes. UConn built a nice lead and managed to fritter it away. Just managing to get it together, and Napier coming up with 7 points and a steal in the final 2-and-1/2 minutes.
UConn’s one-and-done Andre Drummond was a big, intimidating defensive presence — but outside of that he didn’t do much rebounding or scoring. While Roscoe Smith had the late defensive play by drawing the charge on Moore, and helped save UConn in the second half; this was typical UConn with Shabazz Napier and Jeremy Lamb creating most of the offense. And if they actually do get the offense from them, they win.
Pitt got nothing from the guards outside of Woodall. Gibbs had a late, meaningless three that taunted Pitt fans more than anything else. Pitt was never going to beat UConn without getting three-point shots to go.
I am guessing UConn fans remain very disappointed with the overall production of the UConn frontcourt on offense (with good reason), but their size was enough to intimidate and inhibit Pitt’s frontcourt. All four of Drummond’s blocks came in the 1st half, and that was it for Taylor and Zanna. They didn’t even attempt a shot in the second half. Zanna really gave way to Malcolm Gilbert in the second half, who is at least a glimmer of hope for the overall future and depth at the center spot going forward. Worth noting as well, that at least Nasir Robinson kept going. He was 3-6 in the second half.
The only bright spots for Pitt was seeing Lamar Patterson and J.J. Moore continue to give effort. I think Patterson was a tad too selective on his shots considering he was 5-5 and seemed overly cautious. He needs to be more willing to go all the way to the basket as well.
Moore really does seem to have had a light go off for him in the final few weeks. I have been waiting him to slip back to the performances of the first 5 weeks of the Big East schedule, but he has been so much better at both ends. It is reflected in his minutes, as he has averaged 26.6 minutes per game in the last five games.
Driving up today from NC to sit in MSG for the week. I went to the ACC Tourney last year and it wasn’t good. The atmosphere blows. I really hope that Louisville and UCONN end up in the ACC too, because this conference sucks if Wake Forest, NCSU and Maryland all suck ass.
Adams is 7’0″ center with the agility of a man 4 inches shorter. It would be wrong not to play Adams 30 minutes a game he would dominate now if he were here. Gilbert will continue to improve and when Adams leaves in one or two years Gilbert will step in. I can see why Jamie did not want to burn his red-shirt in case Adams stays 2 years.
Gilbert has provided that he can now eliminate one of Pitt’s major weaknesses the lack of a true center. Like McGhee he is no offensive threat but his defensive presence and rebounding could be a big difference in the tournament. Moving Taylor and Zanna to the 4 when playing big, and back to the 5 when playing small.
So, if Pitt does get the early exit for 2013, I believe it would be June/July 1st of 2013.
We will be playing football in the fall, and basketball in the winter in the Big East.
came right at him, and a couple of affected shots against a crappy UConn team. There is promise but it will fall into the same category of all of these other players. Development is key. Gilbert and Adams will give us a promising set of complementary skills- static strength and blocking from Gilbert and more athletic,
weakside efforts from Adams. Neither will be beneficiaries in the offense though. They’ll be last ditch efforts behind gunners like Woodall, Moore, Johnson, and hopefully a less reticent Patterson.
This will take some pressure of the guards and maybe allow some more room for Gibbs.
i even thought those last two calls with him involved were very questionable and he probably would have gotten both at home. the first one should have been a block on Lamb and the second could have been a three-point play because the defender was still sliding. oh well…….
i would think by next season he will have admitted to himself that Taylor and Zanna are both absolutely terrible, especially at center.
but does he decide it’s worth more in the long haul to get the extra year out of of Gilbert or worth more to have a legitimate backup center next year?
tough call. i think i hope he redshirts him. not that many 6’10” kids running around and an extra yr of development could really bring dividends down the line.
There’s a wide open spot at the PF next year. If Zanna/Taylor have any sense they’ll work their butts off to develop some lateral quickness, etc in the hopes to get some playing time there. Otherwise, there’s no room for them at C. If they move to PF it unclogs the C position.
Gilbert has 3 yrs after this. Even if he overlaps with Adams for two years, he’ll see plenty of PT and by his senior year he’ll start and see if he has the NBA resume. There’s also the real chance Adams is one and done. So Gilbert will be an ACC starting center by his junior year. By that point we’ll have recruited another C.
Its a shame Birch screwed up Dixon’s plans to reshirt Gilbert this year. But i guess its ok that we’ll be f’ing stacked at the C for the next 3yrs.
“All sorts of combinations have been tried”. Disagree. The combinations consisted of starting either Zanna or Taylor in the front court. Both are not capable to be starters in the Big East. Gilbert never got a fair chance. I’m not saying these moves would have resulted in wins. At the very least, they would have given young players experience. That means a lot for the future.
The only uncertainty I have about this, and its a significant one, is that Dixon may have felt the need to keep him reigned in so tightly to really train him how to play within the flow of the game — something Moore wasn’t great at at the beginning of the season.
That said, he’s not nearly as big of a gunner and loose cannon as many people (esp on this board) seem to think. Last year he was a maniac shooting shots. This yera, even from game one he wasn’t THAT bad. And as the season wore on, it became clearer he was more disciplined and the rest of the team wasn’t good enough to take his minutes. Still, I can give Dixon some leeway on sort of ‘training’ JJ to be sure that he stays within the flow of the game. He’s there now and pretty much the best player on our team the last 5 – 6 games.
And maybe one other thing – it can be good to have an impact guy coe off the bench to give a boost (which is exactly what Moore did the last 6 games). In my mind, Patterson coming off the bench to inject life is like adding a potato to spice up a meal. Its a solid, stable addition, but probably better as a foundation instead of a boost. My hope is they find room for both guys in the starting lineup next year as they will be our best two returning players.
The knock on JJ Moores defense was only relevant for maybe the first 3rd or at most the first half of the season — but that was also at a time when the rest of the team looked like the keystone cops on defense. Really think people were just conditioned to think JJ Moore’s D was worse than anyone else’s.
I understand the lack of PT for Gilbert — not on any logical level. Only in the sense that I too desperately wanted Taylor or Zanna to become solid players and was willing to give them every chance in the world to do it. If they stepped up it would have made a big difference this year, but more importantly would have been important for the future (ie imagine if either could play PF how good we could be next year). Logically, I just don’t see what either of those two add that Gilbert doesnt. Psychologically, I can absolutely see why those two played a lot.
I think Dixon’s overall coaching job this year was not very good but — Woodall and Birch were out of his hands; burning Gilbert’s redshirt was almost out of his hands; and having only Gibbs, Robinson, Zanna and Taylor as your returning guys is kind of dog’s breakfast. None of those guys were good solid players to anchor either offense or defense. With the young guys, he had to experiment with Cam, Patterson, Johnson, Gilbert and Moore’s PT. Even with Epps. And had to do so in-season. This is probably the biggest reason for our slide this year. Our veterans were below average and the rest of the team couldn’t ever find a rhythm with all the uncertainty about who should be playing how much/where. Thats only partially Dixon’s fault. Making this season work would have been a great job. He didn’t do that. But I wouldn’t call his coaching awful, just not very good.
I think you are looking too far into why Moore didnt play as much…the answer is simple. He was on the Brick City Committee much of the middle of the year. Wasn’t it a stretch of like 5 for 36? Maybe even a little worse? This was from three, but that is all he did in the beginning of the year…he did not try to get to the basket/draw fouls. Regardless, if you shoot 15%, yes, you will not play that much as a guard.
The others all had chances to seize spots in the rotation, but none could really do it. For Wright, it was the turnovers/inability to shoot. For Epps, it was the inability to shoot. For Johnson, it was the inability to guard a sign post.
The only criticism I believe is valid is the lack of playing time for Gilbert. He has been productive and a noticeable defensive force when playing in limited action–for that alone, he should see more time. But when you couple that with the fact he is losing minutes to defensive sieves like Zanna and Taylor (who don’t bring anything offensively, really, either), it is clear Dixon erred.
Heck, they don’t really ever run anything for the 5 man on offense anyway!
Adams has hit 2 3 point shots, is a high percentage foul shoter, can shot off the backboard from 10 feet or from the baseline from 10 feet. He is by far the best offensive center to come out in years. Most American players his size have no offensive game facing the basket they certainly cannot handle the ball like him.
Adams is more of the European style player but and this is a big but he is not shy from physical play inside with his wing span comparable to Blairs put on a 7’0″ with hands bigger than Shag’s.
It is difficult to read the uninformed pessimists about Adams skills to make an immediate and substantial impact. Please query Adams v. Noels (presently the #1 recruit in the country/ 6’11”, 160 lbs.) and despite the fact the video was created to showcase Noles, it demonstrates without argument that Adams oofensive abilities signficatly surpass Noels. To compare Adams with Gilbert as or any other center in college including Drummond fails to account for the offense skills he has that Drummond or Noels will never posses.
I don’t blame Dixon completely for Moore’s lack of PT and slower-than-ideal development. In fact I hardly blame him. Moore needed to figure it out (and to his credit, he did. and he’s only a sophomore). Just think there may have been things he could have done better with Moore. But really Moore’s utilization wasn’t even in the top 3 of major issues for this team so I’m not worked up about it. And I recognize Dixon sees and knows far more than I do.
drw – i don’t think anyone is doubting that Adams is really, really good or that he’ll make an impact. Silver, in my mind, understimates what Adam’s will do. Remember when we had Aaron Gray, we had a pretty active inside-out game — in fact I think that was the defaul to get Gray one touch on every possession. Same will happen with Adams. That said, it’s a lot to take one for him so Adams is going to ease into the season and probably won’t be as active a part of the offense until BE play.
JJ Moore is not just playing well now because he suddenly is getting minutes. He and the staff have put in time and he’s improved. If he was still playing like shit, he wouldn’t be playing now. The main problem with this team is turnovers and there’s not much JJ Moore or Malcolm Gilbert could help with in that area. Nickel and diming how many minutes each should get seems silly at this point. They are in practice and they get in the games. If they played better in both, they’d get more minutes.
I will cover lineup combinations, etc. and do a postmortem of the season on the front page of the blog for folks to comment on once we are done for good.
