I still haven’t made up my mind who I’m rooting against in this game.
Forget that Big East/ACC solidarity. I’m looking for pain and anguish.
On the one hand, I live in Ohio and seeing Ohio State fans gnash their teeth and try to rationalize how basketball isn’t as important as football — after their run to the Championship game with Oden and their Final Four appearance last year has had them crowing — well, that would just be fun.
On the other hand, the Big Blue Nation that is Kentucky are batshit crazy. To have Louisville and Rick Pitino — in the same year they lose an opening NIT game to Robert Morris — win creates such epic rants and meltdowns all over the internet. It’s just a non-stop festival of insanity.
Obviously, there is no winner for me, without Pitt. But I can take joy in my own way because of who wins.
Could care less about Michigan but loathe Louisville and in particular their coach.
Having said the above is GO BABY BLUE AND TAKE DOWN DA VILLE-ANS!!!
and 3 outher good players for next year.
be they jc or transfers or high school senior.
A-whooo, werewolves of London!
………
saw a werewolf drinkin’ a pina colada at Trader Vic’s And his hair was perfect
A-whooo werewolves of London .. ah, draw blood!
random lyrics from the late, great Warren Zevon – WEREWOLVES OF LONDON LYRICS
You just hit on the number one reason for my college sports choices: I root for Pitt and whoever plays Ohio State. (I hate to admit it, but my best moments from college sports so far this century have been 13-9 and wacthing Ohio State fans lose big to LSU, Florida, etc.
Go Pitt! Go Blue!
(And I really don’t care for Pitino either!)
Send lawyers guns and money
What an excitable boy!
Athletes and Shooters, Athletes and Shooters!!!!
No Stiffs Allowed!!! At any height or position!!!
Athletes and Shooters!!!!
Great shooting, ferocious rebounding, terrific intensity.
Refs for the most part let them play.
I hope Jamie et al are out recruiting.
Great finish for the Big East. Go ACC
Note that Wisconsin, which is the Big 10 version of Pitt, played many of the teams tough also but also bowed out in the first round of the NCAA to an even lower seed than us.
On another note, Pitt could not have played at that tempo with any hope of wunning because we don’t have the same level of talent–particularly in terms of speed and quickness in the backcourt. Dixon does about as well as is possible with what he has. Recruiting talent and athleticism, not coaching, is Pitt’s main issue, IMHO.
I don’t want to say that the game was painful to watch, because that brand of basketball does provide for some spectacular moments. I wouldn’t call it a classic either though.
To start with you had Albrecht, a bench warmer light it up for seventeen in the first half, with their superstar on the bench. Not sure why they never set any up for him in the second half.
Then Hancock goes crazy and brings Louisville off the mat.
In the second half Louisville’s full court pressure continued to wear down Michigan. Burke played outstanding as did Siva, who was outstanding at both ends.
The difference was the Louisville bigs wanted it a little more down the stretch, Behanen was a beast, Dieng makes a big shot and McGary looked a little lost.
I agree that Pitino outcoached Beilein down the stretch as you might expect. The refs are always going to miss a few but I didn’t think they affected the outcome at all.
The play was ferocious and intense and as high speed as is possible. There were spectacular dunks.
If you didn’t like this one, either you were a Michigan fan or I’m not sure what you would find entertaining.
As for sloppy schoolyard basketball, if this was it I’m all for it.
Michigan not going back to Albrecht had a lot to do with their overall style in the late first half and the entire second half. They generally went away from the first half aggressiveness. Maybe Albrecht was tired since he hadn’t played that many minutes all season. Who knows.
All I know is that the game didn’t really hold my attention. It could be me. Maybe I’m old. Or maybe I just cared more about Louisville losing than I did about Michigan winning.
Someday maybe we will get a point guard like one of those. The ball handling and the speed they play at is phenomenal. Robinson will be very good, but those guys both have a gear you need to be born with.
We can’t play uptempo against the big boys since we don’t have the athletes/shooters like they do.
However you’re not going to get the type of players (athletes/shooters) you need to play that way, if you’re playing ugly halfcourt snailball.
And that is The Catch.
L-ville & the Over. (way over) 🙂
All these guys are better in uptempo:
Woodie
Zeigler (had best game vs DePaul)
Adams
Sleepy
Zanna (can’t play in halfcourt against better teams)
Moore (had best game vs DePaul)
Big mistake this year with the 10 man deep was not using the rent-a-win season in getting into an uptempo offense and some sort of press defense, thereby making team depth an advantage over conf. opponents.
Here’s an AP piece on Dixon, Rice & Pitt
Now, being run at a much faster pace than maybe we are used too.
Their pg’s allready had in mind what they were gonna do before they even got to the half court line.
The teams were very well educated on how their offenses were supposed to work and their role, and though it may have seemed scatter brained, I found them to be highly potent offenses, aggressively running their offenses at the defenses, almost forcing themselves onto the defenses as opposed to getting across the line, then taking 15 seconds or so, to decdie what to do.
Not a veiled criticism at JD either. I understand what we run and we’ll have to live with it.
To me, I saw a couple polished teams running at full bore.
Like PittDad said, eye of the beholder. I’m no expert certainly.
If there weren’t any pressure I would let it go with a warning, but against pressure you have to call it.
I think officiating this year was all over the place.
I’m not bitter, it’s just that as of late, I’m more comfortable understating our ability, then reading too much into what appears to be a silver-lined loss.
The announcers in the final were so B1G biased on the calls it made me sick. How could any Pitt fan root for Michigan is beyond me….
