The wife and one of the kids have been sick for the past week. It’s been nicely staggered so that just as one started improving the next goes down. Spare time has been minimal.
Guess who said this?
“It’s an area we love to recruit. Playing in New York City is something we try to do every year. Hopefully we’ll be able to continue to do it on an annual basis one way or another.”
Nope. Not Jamie Dixon. That’s Cinci Coach Mick Cronin. With Rutgers off to the Big 10, and not even Seton Hall to kick around there is no NY area team in the American Conference. Cinci has four NY area kids on their squad, so there will be families from both sides.
That loss over the weekend to Xavier has Cronin questioning his players’ “toughness.” So, expect a chippy effort.
Have to remind myself this is now a non-con game. Thankfully the River City Rivalry Trophy is not involved. Apparently so do the players.
“I’m predicting that game will be a lot more physical [than any of Pitt’s games to date],” point guard James Robinson said. “It is going to be up and down, they have good guards and wings and they always have a good presence inside, so we are going to have to focus on our defense first.
“But, like I said, they are going to be physical, I’m sure they are going to press us, but it is going to be a fun game.”
The game is unlikely to offer much, if any goodwill.
Robinson recalled that, as a freshman last season, he got schooled on how physical the Big East would be when Pitt opened its conference schedule against Cincinnati.
“That was the first conference game for us last year, and I could definitely feel the difference in how physical it was from the non-conference games to the conference games,” Robinson said. “I’m expecting them to bring a lot of energy, a lot of toughness, and they will be physical. They are going to attack the whole game, and we just need to be confident and know that we can be just as physical and just as aggressive.”
The focus will be on shutting down a guard (again).
The onus will be on Pitt’s backcourt to stop senior guard Sean Kilpatrick, who averages 19.3 points. The Panthers know it will be an emphasis, after allowing Youngstown State’s Kendrick Perry to go for 28 points Saturday and Penn State’s Tim Frazier to score 27 earlier this month.
“He is basically going to attack the whole game,” Robinson said of Kilpatrick. “He is going to try and score any way he can.
“He’s physical. He’s going to go for the entire game, whether it be to the bucket or shooting 3s.”
7pm on ESPN.
Anyway jr didn’t lose this game and comparisons to tino by others are a bit over the top i think,
Far more worried about a weak frontcourt than backcourt right now. I have seen every game and we have yet to play anybody with a hint of a decent frontcourt…until tonight and cicny’s is not even that good.
PITT’s backcourt can’t create and doesn’t penetrate, albeit once or twice a game with Cam.
Also it’s up to your backcourt to push the ball in transition and we had like zero or 2 points in transition.
When you can’t score in the half court, it’s imperative you try to get east baskets in transition. But our guards were hesitant of getting the ball stripped so they didn’t push it.
Oh, yes, I was speaking on how much fun this team is going to be to watch, and how it’s so much different than the previous two years.
Ah, ya, that’s where I was. LMAO!!!
There was a TV timeout at that point 30-25 PITT, and we never really played up to that level again.
That was about the highlite of the night.
I do believe Cincy beat NC State by 11 points earlier this year.
It sucks though, now we won’t have a chance to be ranked (and it is important for perception reasons and program reasons, let alone seeding reasons) until we play Syracuse in mid-January.
I’m bummed !!!
Might want to tuck that “lack of respect” card back in your sport coat pocket!!!
LOL
What’d the one announcer say??
An ugly win is better than a pretty loss???
Where does an ugly loss fit in???
Make FTs and we win. They are called free.
Somebody…….anybody …….help !!!
link to espn.go.com
At least we didn’t go out to a cocktail lounge, blow a C-Note and then leave, tail dragging.
Oh the joy….the joy…..of being genetically coded to be a Pitt man.
HTP !
VeV !
link to collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports.com
OK….that wasn’t funny….
Obviously there is much work to do and unfortunately the next few games won’t show anyone how they will respond as they won’t be challenged. Today’s game revealed all their weaknesses we knew and some we didn’t especially ball handling and passing skills.
Robinson has never been a scorer, but I am concerned with his slowness on defense. Lamar missing the FT’s at the end is disappointing but maybe this game needed to happen. This was a bad loss but would have been a bad win had they pulled it out.
Again once Coach Dixon gets shooters and athletes he’ll start winning come March. He and his system can only do so much.
No surprise on the rebounding — this team has nobody that can go get it. Zanna is a wuss and Young can’t jump either. In last night’s game, every carom on Pitt’s defensive end was basically a 50/50 ball because they’re so weak inside.
Agree on the Robinson concerns. If you’re Pitt and you’re going to take a methodical offensive approach in the halfcourt, your PG is going to have the ball in his hands a lot, and if there is ZERO chance of him beating anybody off the dribble it really hampers any chance you have to generate points. Not sure if Newkirk is ready, but Robinson plays like a 50 yr old dude at the local YMCA.
The only team in the ACC that plays that way is Notre Dame.
We played our worst, poor foul shooting, shooting in general, and rebounding, and lost by a point.
Give Cinci credit, they played ferocious defense, something we have not seen all year, and crashed the boards.
This was a good loss, time to go back to work.
That said, that was just a bad game. The first half the ball was bouncing off hands constantly. I counted three chances for breakaway layups that went unconverted. And the FT shooting failed them. If the latter had been better, Pitt wins.
Newkirk needs more minutes, Durand Durand needs to learn to set his feet at least somewhat before firing up a 3 and also go watch some tape of Sam Young and learn the value of the pump and drive, and Zanna needs to finally man-the-F-up when this team needs him.
Sadly, with two patsies coming up, there is no way to even judge whether this team learned anything from that loss last night. We’ll have to wait ’til 2014 for that, which is ridiculous.
In 50 plus years of playing & watching I have never seen a coach as uptight as JD during a game. I think that interferes with his game management and it translates to the players.
Don’t panic. One game does not make
or break a season. Some nights the
offense just isn’t there. This team will
play better. That said Zanna was open
in the post all night bit didn’t get the ball.
@Old School “I have never seen a coach as uptight as JD during a game.” MAYBE
@JP “A better team would have kept pushing…” SHOULD HAVE!!! – Robinson doesn’t cut to the basket(doesn’t he think anyone else can feed him?) and Lamar pushed at times but tentative at others
I have to think that Robinson is a better shooter at practice considering his FT%. Does he ever shoot at practice or just looks for the assist?
Girl in the office, huge Pitt fan, like I said, not much on the details of football or hoops, just enjoys watching and loves Pitt.
“what happened to the team I’d been watching and getting excited about this year? They look like they’ve looked the past two years”
So if you add 13 + 8 (let’s say) equals 21 minutes.
We went a complete half of basketball without any FG’s.
Again I do think this is a tactic by opposing coaches to foul PITT and put them on the line, rather than give up easy FG’s (see Stanford) but still we missed tons of shots. (30% FG ?)
Sucks….on the brink of being ranked !
And worse yet it validated all the PITT naysayers including that a-hole Gottlieb. Oy Vey !