It appears that all we need is a hybrid frontcourt — Dante on offense and Steven on defense at the 5; and Talib from 5 feet and in, and JJ on the perimeter at the 4. Is that asking too much?

Seriously, Adams is a work-in-progress especially offensively while Dante still has problems defensively (especially the hedge.) Talib did take most of his shots close to the basket on Monday but they were either blocked or altered while JJ is playing a position not suited for him, but needs to be there out of necessity.

I think mental toughness and confidence are at the heart of Talib’s struggles and he is certainly capable of breaking out of his current funk.Syracuse will only have 7 scholarship players on Saturday.This would be a great time for Mr. Zanna to put it in gear.Last year he was pathetic at the foul line.Until recently he had really improved and it is the perfect time to get it all together.I am betting our inside people have a big day.HTP

Looking ahead, I thing Pitt can win 6 or at least 5 of the last 9 games. Maybe get 1 in the BE tournament. That should get them into the NCAA where anything can happen.

This team has the talent to perform well but they need to concentrate for a whole game.

Dixon could start Adams and Taylor at the 5 and 4 and then bring in Zanna off the bench. Maybe, if he was coming in to the game at the 5, he would play closer to the basket.

Timely article. Last couple games I have been screaming at the TV when Zanna gets the ball. Notice how he waits (freezes?) for a second. This gives the defense a chance to collapse around him. He’s thinking too much.

Howard, I agree with you. Puzzled as to why Dixon won’t play Adams and Taylor together.

Howard, I certinly would like to see more of that, but it becomes dependent on whether or not Adams and Taylor can stay our of foul trouble. When Adams gets two quick fouls, Taylor would then have to move back to the center position. Zanna has become tenative and it has affected his shot. He has shown the ability hit the short jumper and to score inside. He needs to regain his confidence. It the hesitation before he shoots that is killing him.

Chas – great article and thoughts. My thoughts on Zannqa are well known as I think he should be on the bench, 3 down from Coach Dixon. He thinks instead of reacting. Growing up, a lot of us played basketball for hours daily, Zanna is relatively new to the game.

The real problem with Zanna et al is that we get no scoring inside and teams are barely covering our big men, concentrating on the outside shooters. Dante at the 4 could change that. He is a natural 4 anyhow.

The only thing I can figure out is that Dixon is concerned about Taylor’s defense at the 4 … since he is a defense-first coach

The frustrating thing with this team is that you can see that everything is real close to “clicking”. It may be coming together at the right time this year rather than them peaking too early (recent history). IF this team can get Zanna and Moore going like earlier in the season and with the way the rest of the team has progressed – the potential is there for this to be a very difficult out in the tourney.

I can’t pin it exactly, but there is something I really like about this team. I just really get the feeling that they are almost there.

I don’t remember which game it was (might have been DePaul or Providence) but I remember seeing Adams and Taylor on the floor together and noting how well it worked.

Zanna is a good player against inferior competion. He has looked great every year until the Big East games start, then he is done. Lack of confidence is a hard thing to overcome even for someone with the talent to do so.
I would sit him down at the start of the next couple games and tell him when he goes in he has 4 minutes to show he wants to be on the floor, and if it doesn’t improve he can sit.

I agree with all the comments on Zana and how its become a tale of two seasons with this young man. However, I wonder what the discussion would be today if this team would have hit 65% to 70% of its foul shots in the Marquette or Louisville game, in which case both would likely have been wins.
What is really deceiving about Pitt’s pathetic foul shooting is that the percentages fail to consider as misses all the second shots they DON’T even get a chance to shoot because of missed FTs on the first shot of 1-and-1s.

Taxing Matters, Against Louisville, if they would have shot a litte better than 50%, from the foul line, they would have won the game. They are improving and they have made a lot of progress. It’s the foul shooting and some of the little things that are holding them back. I don’t expect a win on Saturday, but a win over Syracuse would be terrific.

Chas, great assessment of Zanna; I would add that when he does get the ball in good position on the block he allows the defender to establish positon between him and the bucket by hesitating as Dan-72 has mentioned (he always wants to bring the ball down first), and by not physically battling to retain position.

As for Moore, he certainly has the physical tools to take the ball to the hoop but seems to lack the will. One blocked shot and he’s done, never tries again the rest of the game. Neither Zanna nor Moore are bangers, that’s for sure.

This has been Zanna’s story for two seasons now — for various reasons, he seems to shrink versus quality opponents. I’d love to see a tenacity and aggressiveness offensively, but I don’t know if it’s in him unless he’s against an opponent he feels stronger than and more confident against.

It looks like this spot will just be another challenge for Dixon all year: trying to play the hot hand, the right matchups (even if it does include Taylor at the spot for a minute or two).

I didn’t get too deep into the last post, but as frustrating to me as anything against Louisville was a lack of effective adjustments defensively. I’ve seen differing reports as to whether it was poor communication of strategy or lack of execution or whatever, but how could Pitt’s defenders repeatedly swarm Dieng in the high post, leaving baseline cutters open? Let him take that 15-footer or put the ball on the ground. (Syracuse worked that idea masterfully against them.) And why not sag off of Siva rather than let him slice and dice them apart? His shooting has been atrocious lately. Surely Pitt’s coaching staff and defenders can identify that, have them go under those ball screens, etc. (It’s not as if the hedgers were quick enough to make a difference anyway.)

Ok, had to get that out. Hope to see a jumping Pete and a better performance Saturday.

I share your feeling, tossing, that they are very close to “clicking.” Really saw that cohesiveness against DePaul, which came from pushing the ball and attacking the hoop. That stat that Moore has not been to the FT line in 4 BE games is just shocking. Can only hope that Dixon is really trying to drive that into Moore’s head (and Patterson’s as well).

WVU cancelled their in home visit with Boyd. Pitt will be only in home visit and scheduled visit with Tennessee is still on per Boyd’s mother.

Barring something special in the BE Tourney, Pitt almost needs a win against the Orange. Otherwise, they really have no signature wins this season. There are few standout teams all around, but that may actually hurt Pitt, as opposed to help them.

Note that wins against Cincy, Marquette, and ND will/would be nice, but I wouldn’t call those gimmies, and none of those are marquee wins.

Zanna is short on almost every miss. He needs to go up strong and quit babying it

What games do you guys watch?

Moore has no dribble drive game. Zero. He likes to bomb threes and he occasionally scores on putbacks and layups. Very few of his scores are a result of taking anyone to the hoop. C’mon! (Side note: I’d like to see his Wonderlic. Would have to rival Kordell’s)

Zanna is overmatched physically against tough front lines in BE play. At 6’8″ and with good speed up the floor, he can dominate when they’re playing Maryland Eastern Shore or whatever other cupcakes Dixon schedules early.

You’d hesitate in the paint against L-ville too, if you knew you were going to get your crap swatted.

And stop with the silly talk about Taylor playing the 4. Puhleeeze. We’re lucky we’re getting a few offensive rebounds and a few putbacks when Adams is in foul trouble. Don’t mess with something that is actually working.

Taylor had 9 points in 11 minutes vs Louisville, and would have had 11 pts if it weren’t for that shitty call against him that put him on the bench.

As of right now, I will definitely take Sleepy over Adams offensively.

JJ is great in the transition in the open floor on getting to the basket but I agree that he is not as good as Patterson.

clariifcation — he is not as good of a slasher as Patterson is

another clariifcation .. not as good as a slasher than Patterson or Zeigler

Thabeet, I have the same feeling but I have often let my heart fool my head.One of these times I have to be right.We are due,even over due for a serious run of sucess.I think Mr Adams might be the guy to help change our luck.

Not only are you not getting much offense from the 4 spot now, when you add that to not much from the 5 spot and not much from the 1 spot, Pitt can struggle to score points.

Not much consistency from this assortment of Gilbert Browns.

Which is either due to substitution patterns or these guys aren’t that good.

Either way it’s on Coach. As he is doing the subbing and the recruiting.

Fix it please !

HTP
VeV

A side effect of this system is this:

if the players in the pipeline don’t workout or aren’t up to snuff, it’s very hard to find new ones
to immediately come in and contribute.

As this is apparently a somewhat complicated system which takes years to learn.

Which means there are NO quick fixes.
Even McDonald’s All-Americans don’t work.

Unless you have have a spare DeJuan (manchild) Blair on the shelf somewhere.

Coach tinkered with the lineup after winning 3 straight (2 on the road) with the insertion of Wright back into the lineup.

Who in turn took Durand Durand’s minutes against L-ville.

Maybe time to tinker again and sit Zanna and bring him off the bench.

Need the Signature Win against Cuse !!!

“IF this team can get Zanna and Moore going like earlier in the season and with the way the rest of the team has progressed – the potential is there for this to be a very difficult out in the tourney.”

Don’t think we can reschedule Howard, North Florida, Kennesaw State and Bethune-Cookman for later in the season……can we

Some positive spin.

PiTT is up to #6 in the latest kempom ratings.

http://kenpom.com/

Zanna is a good player against inferior competion. He has looked great every year until the Big East games start, then he is done.
Comment by Jimbo 01.31.13 @ 11:56 am

imo this is because the BigEast is a very physical conference as we all know. And Zanna is a softie.

“I’ve seen differing reports as to whether it was poor communication of strategy or lack of execution or whatever, but how could Pitt’s defenders repeatedly swarm Dieng in the high post, leaving baseline cutters open? Let him take that 15-footer or put the ball on the ground. (Syracuse worked that idea masterfully against them.) And why not sag off of Siva rather than let him slice and dice them apart? His shooting has been atrocious lately. Surely Pitt’s coaching staff and defenders can identify that, have them go under those ball screens, etc. (It’s not as if the hedgers were quick enough to make a difference anyway.)”

L-Ville had been shooting the ball terrible in the previous 3 games. Which is even more reason why PITT should have been playing zone. Make them shoot from the outside. Instead they played Man mostly and gave up so many point blank shots and dunks even L-Ville couldn’t miss them.

Terrible scouting job by PITT. (they should hire me……:-) )

EMel:

Most of Louisville’s dunks were in the zone defense.

Zanna isn’t making his free throws and that is a problem. He is still playing okay. Zanna will be fine and he is, by far, Pitt’s best option at the 4.

Sadly, I have to agree with hugh green on JJ Moore. He doesn’t drive to the hoop because he can’t dribble. It’s unfortunate, but his game has regressed. Perhaps the foot injury over the summer was a much bigger deal than we realize. The kid bombs threes for some reason that I cannot understand. He shoots 28% from distance.

Taylor at the 4 has been discussed for 4 years. He can’t do it. He doesn’t have the skillset. Period.

And stop with the silly talk about Taylor playing the 4. Puhleeeze. We’re lucky we’re getting a few offensive rebounds and a few putbacks when Adams is in foul trouble. Don’t mess with something that is actually working.
Comment by hugh green 01.31.13 @ 3:26 pm

lol gotta admit.. I fantasize about Sleepy at the 4, but it’s a pipedream. And if anyone is suggesting Sleepy at the 5 more instead of Adams, what that gives you, is last year’s matador defense with NO ONE in the middle to intimidate anyone or stop penetration. We are quite fortunate when Sleepy plays to get a few offensive rebounds and maybe a putback or two.

And two putbacks equals a 4 ppg scoring average.
His career average, approximately.

@Omar

If we gave up dunks in a Zone defense, Coach needs to learn how to teach it. Or find some players who can play it. Cause they can’t play man to man.

That isn’t supposed to happen, lol

Individual BigEast (only) Stats

Patterson 11.8 ppg
Woodall 9.2 ppg
Zanna 8.3 ppg
Zeigler 7.1 ppg
Moore 6.3 ppg
Adams 6.1 ppg
Robinson 5.6 ppg
Durand Durand 5.3 ppg
Sleepy 4.8 ppg
Wright 3.8 ppg

http://statsheet.com/mcb/teams/pittsburgh/players?&stats=conference

you know it it is miller time

@FRANKCAN – Mitch Miller? You want him to teach them how to follow the bouncing ball?

I think Tyler Boyd’s mom is ok in my book. If she doesn’t like WV coaches or doesn’t her son going to West Virginia, that’s her perogative. One thing about your mom, they want what they believe is best for you and they’re not shy about expressing it.

Article could have been

Empty at 4, 1 & 5 lol

We’re getting a combined 20 ppg from all 3 positions from the starters in BE games.

I think we have a 10 player rotation only because nobody other than Patterson recently, has showed
anything on a consistent basis. Had we had any consistent players there’d be no reason to play 10 guys.

And this is a down year in the BigEast and college basketball in general. All these one and dones is not helping the matter, be it with college basketball or the NBA.

The NBA’s product is garbage anymore.

No Coleman (not Derrick) and Southerland on Sat.
I hope that this works in Pitt’s favor.

according to the data in Emel’s posting … Adams is averaging 6.1 in 25 minutes per game while Taylor is at 4.8 in 13.5 minutes. If Taylor had Adams’ minutes, he would be over 9 ppg and the 2nd leading scorer. And further, Taylor has sat extra minutes in blowout games just to rightfully give Adams more floor time.

I’m not at all implying Taylor should be playing more than Adams; just saying that Taylor is not inept offensively as some here seem to infer.

As much as I would like to see what would happen with Adams and Taylor on the floor the same time, I have doubts about Taylor’s defense at the 4.

Two 2014 OL from the Pennsylvania area visiting this weekend. One of them 6’7/300 (Rivals). Wow!

Hey emel, isn’t that the same Kenpom you dissed when I mentioned it before the cincy game? You remember the post — I think you claimed I wasn’t a Pitt fan or something like that.

Fact is that this is a good team, that until it beats somebody who is considered great, isn’t going to be ranked. See, for example, Gassaway’s article on ESPN.com yesterday, discussing Pitt.

The poor defensive adjustments and execution I was referring to against Dieng were indeed when Pitt was in its zone. That’s why I referenced how well Syracuse handled him. The ball screen issues were mostly while in man.

I agree with assessments of Moore. Many are deluded into thinking he is a slashing/penetrating weapon by just how athletic he is. But we have three years of evidence now indicating he is not a skilled ball handler — for a bit we gave him benefit of the doubt and just thought he was reluctant, but it’s clear that’s just not in his arsenal. He can attack the offensive glass, he can drive an open baseline from time to time, and he can certainly hoist up the 3-ball. Again, think he is more of a “hot hand” type guy that hopefully Dixon can pull the best out of.

Bottom line: We need a go-to-guy.

I actually think Dixon wouldn’t mind that Pitt run more to take advantage of the athleticism of guys like Moore, but the problem there is that we have to rebound better to do that

I like TossingThabeets angle. The team is close, they just need to learn how to win. It’s probably the sum of a dozen little things. I’m optimistic for the tourney.

The PG and Trib finally catch up to Pitt Blather with articles about Zanna.

Counting on Zanna and Moore to counter the Zone with the mid range jumper.

If Zanna and Moore become more productive they will prove TT right, along with timely foul shooting. I think Zanna is close but I think Moore is more like Brown , he’ll have a huge game once in a while, but then disappear.

I agree with the poor ball handling assessment. The man is stripped or just loses the handle way to often. However, he is the best leaper on the team and capable of monster jams which can lift the emotion of the team and the fans. I particularly enjoy the ones in someones face ala Julius Page, Moore is capable. We just need one or two a game.

Let’s start tomorrow.

wonder why pitt no longer runs set alley oop dunk plays for moore like jaime often did for page and brown?? haven’t seen one in forever.

Yeah good idea. Loved those Fields/Blair or Fields/Young dunks. Those guys were super talented and they knew how to put on a show. Would love to see some showmanship from this team. Guess that comes with winning consistently though.

Don’t want to jump the gun, but just saw where someone said that Boyd posted something on Facebook about being committed to WVU now. I wonder if he is thinking of going elsewhere because he knows maybe Foster has changed his mind?? Just a thought.

Thinking beats the Orange.

Rumors! Rumors! I heard Tyler Boyd was visiting Alabama.

Not to be negative, but I think Kemp is a no-go as well.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/blogs/recruiting/os-kentucky-likely-gains-jojo-kemp-freedom-jeff-badet-20130131,0,3517068.post

17 year old kids are a risky group to hitch your wagon to, but hey….
As far as th older guys in the basketball jerseys, tomorrow is a big, big game.
ZANNA must score in double digits and we must rebound.
Free throws? yeah, they matter, but rebounding isn’t about technique, it’s about wanting it more.

total dagger if boyd ends up at wvu and foster sticks w/ bama. wouldn’t blame boyd for picking tenn. sec, butch jones’ offense and 100k+ every home game. not a bad gig.

SF:
Not convinced that Zanna is the man, but the PF position needs to be productive.
And Adams better not shave.

I don’t think it’s a “dagger” if Boyd ends up somewhere else and Foster doesn’t flip, but would definitely be a disappointment.

Somebody will step up at WR next year and they have some promising young guys coming in that could develop into solid upperclassmen. Would be nice to have a gamebreaker like Boyd though.

Monday will tell…

wed, actually.

ohh, wonder if bama will have the fax girls cam again?!

Pitt typically shows up to play against Syracuse so I expect hem to play well. Hopefully well enough to get the win!

Switching to footaball, I really like the recruiting Chryst and company put together this year. Hopefully Boyd stays, but I wouldn’t be surprized about anything after the Foster decision. The Panthers seem to have gone after lineman which is what they needed the most.

Hail to Pitt!

In football, there a few other 3 and 4 star wide receivers who will announce Wednesday. Should be interesting.

Hard to believe Kemp would choose a perennial SEC doormat (UK) over PITT. We have put some great RB’s into the NFL, Kentucky has put zilch.
If we can’t outpitch UK something is wrong.

Mustn’t want the competition to play, I guess.

Somebody tweet my first line to JoJo please. lol

Emel, No matter how hard you try or how good of a recruiting class you put together, you just can’t everyone you want. Getting players from other parts of the country is really tough. That’s why they really have go after the best local players first. They just have a better probability of landing a kid from western PA. Hey, we didn’t
get Foster and who knows about Boyd.

@xfm
Put it this way, Z in double figures would be icing. Adams won’t shave. Too early in the day for that.

Kemp to UK is official.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/blog/nfl-rapidreports/21628327/report-buccaneers-make-dave-wannstedt-special-teams-coordinator

SF:

Should we hope that he sleeps late?

He was shaved at Louisville (7:00 PM game).

@Justinian

Well we better start getting better at getting players from out of Western Pa and PA. in general.

For even back in our latest Golden area, 50% of the players Majors and Sherrill recruited were from points mostly South of Pittsburgh.

That’s part of the reason we were so so good.
from 1975 to 1984.

Hell put me on the payroll, I’ll recruit the Carolinas for them. haha

Duquesne is winless in the A-10 and Ped State is winless in the Big Joke.

And the Hoopies are almost in the cellar in the Lame 12 (really 10).

We really should be cleaning up in Pa. with D1 prospects in HS. We know wva doesn’t have any.
Surely Philly does. What gives.

oy vey

EMel, Yes, you’re right. They have to get better with the top local kids. I think success on the playing field will help in that regard. Of course, the more successful the program the easier it becomes to attract athletes from other parts of the country. EMel you can take over the defense and recruit the Carolinas

Forget Kemp- I want Pitt to get this kid from Florida. Apparently he decommitted from Cincy and has a BC offer. He’s 5’9″ but has some of the best balance I’ve ever seen. Please Coach- get on this ASAP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqYcFOvfajA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Zanna has zero lower body strength – which is why he struggles in the BE against real competition. Hip strength w/ a big ass is what allows a player to get post position. He will continue to struggle.