Any time a ranked team loses to an unranked team it is a big deal in that news cycle. Regardless of how the other team is doing. Road or not. Conference game is minimized. Just look at Kentucky and Wisconsin going down last night. They played teams with NCAA Tournament expectations of their own on the road. They lost in close, tight games and it is treated as an amazing thing.
For that moment it looks like it, but when seen over the course of the whole season it hardly seems surprising. It was a conference loss on the road. No one expected either team to go undefeated in conference or only lose one or two games. In conference play, on average, if you lose no more than two home games and go 5-4 on the road, you are an upper-tier team.
From that perspective, if Pitt had lost last night at Georgia Tech it wouldn’t have been a huge shock. GT, like so many middle-of-the-pack teams plays far better at home than on the road.
In the moment, though, it would have been treated as a bigger deal since Pitt finally got ranked. By virtue of doing nothing but winning all but one game, Pitt pushed past the Seth Davises who wouldn’t rank or credit Pitt as punishment for the non-con. Or those who only saw the Cinci mess and base their entire POV on that game. A loss, though, to GT right after ranking would be their justification and proof they were right.
So, in that way, this was a big win for Pitt.
I find beating GT last night a big win because Pitt is now 2-0 on the road and 4-0 overall in the ACC. The schedule gets a lot tougher over the next 2 weeks starting on Saturday. A trip to Syracuse. Home games with Duke and UVa, and a road game at Maryland. There’s also a surprisingly competent Clemson team coming to the Pete in the mix. It’s hard to envision Pitt coming through that stretch unscathed, but the Panthers are in a good place heading into this stretch.
On to a brief recap of last night.
Lamar Patterson did not have a good game. Check that, he had a horrible first half but righted things in the second half.
First half: 0-5, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, 4 turnovers
Second half: 4-8 (including a 3), 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 turnovers
And despite Pitt’s best player having a really bad first half, Pitt was only down 3 points at the half. In no small part because Talib Zanna has continued to be consistently excellent in conference play (free throws not included) and James Robinson felt the need to get to scoring.
Point guard James Robinson and shooting guard Cameron Wright combined for 30 points — nearly a dozen above their combined average — to lead the No. 22 Panthers to an 81-74 victory over Georgia Tech on Tuesday night at McCamish Pavilion.
“James can score, and I feel like I’ve been pretty consistent this year, but we lost Durand, and that hurt all of us,” said Wright, who scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half. “We’re playing for him because he deserves it. He brings energy, things that coaches can’t coach. He brings a passion to the game, his intensity and, of course, that 3-point shot that we’re going to definitely miss.”
The victory sets up a showdown between former Big East foes and ACC newcomers Pitt (16-1, 4-0) and No. 2 Syracuse (17-0, 4-0) at 4 p.m. Saturday at the Carrier Dome.
Robinson cracked double digits for the first time this season, scoring a career-high 16 points.
“I just said I was going to be aggressive on the offensive end,” said Robinson, who also had five assists and four steals. “If my shot was there, I was going to take it.”
Zanna and Robinson had 10 and 11 points respectively in the first half.
In the second, Patterson and Wright found their grooves to go with Zanna — who finished with 22 points and 9 rebounds. Pitt was just beating GT. Wearing them down as they have done to other teams. You could see it as Pitt just dominated on the boards.
In fact, they outrebounded the Yellow Jackets, 38-18, and that led to a 46-34 edge in points in the paint and a 21-11 edge in second-chance points.
“I’m excited about the win, I am excited by how we did it,” Dixon said. “The rebounding, you obviously have to win that on the road and to do it by that kind of margin was very good. We also hit some free throws down the stretch. The rebounding really stood out to me. Our rebounding numbers have been good, but we always believe we can get better and we did a good job.
“And our passing was terrific, that is what we do, we are good shooting team, but when you get layups, that is why you shoot 57 percent from the field.”
GT had 12 rebounds in the first half. They only had 6 for the entire second half — only 3 defensive. The lack of defensive rebounds also had a lot to do with how well Pitt moved the ball and scored so efficiently. But still. ONLY 3 DEFENSIVE REBOUNDS IN 20 MINUTES!
With under six minutes to go, Pitt had opened up a 14 point lead.
Credit to GT and their coach, Brian Gregory. They did not give up when it got this bad. They really kept playing hard even when down 10 and 90 seconds left. They stretched — god, did they stretch — that final minute-and-a-half out. Making some big shots. Fouling quickly, and attacking Pitt. The Panthers were caught off-guard since they really haven’t had this situation all year. They made some bad fouls to let GT score without time moving. Trae Golden for the Yellowjackets did everything he could to drag the rest of his team to a miracle.
In the end, Pitt kept it together. Made enough free throws and got enough stops to escape with the win.
It’s a shame we sometimes learn of others doings after they’ve passed.
Never knew Curtis was also recruited by Ivy League schools, Yale, Harvard and Penn. Man he was only 43.
“Curtis made indelible contributions as both a player and assistant coach at Pitt. His competitive nature on the field was only surpassed by his kind and gentle demeanor off of it ,” the University of Pittsburgh athletic department said in a statement. “Our deepest sympathies go out to his family and many loved ones. While Curtis will be greatly missed, he will not be forgotten by the many people he touched at Pitt.”
With the way Z is playing he should be. Missed a Double/Double by 1 rebound which he would have got easily had not a couple bogus fouls put him on the bench.
Top to bottom there was nothing like and will be nothing like the Big East.
Big Ten Basketball celebrating the break up of the Big East.
The only mistakes Big East Basketball made were letting DePaul in and letting Providence be in charge. If the football schools were in charge it would still exist. Penn State would have been included and Miami, Va Tech and BC would have never left, as for ND…..
Let’s not kid ourselves though, the Big East had plenty of it’s share of dogs.
Rutgers, Providence, DePaul, Seton Hall, South Florida, St. John’s.
All junk.
Not disparaging the Big East.
Loved it. Let’s face it, the conference was effed up from the get go.
Basketball, then Basketball and some Football, then some new members, football only, then 3 teams leave, then this, then that.
It never had the all around conference feel.
Everyone’s different, but personally, I love seeing the Pitt logo next to all of the ACC schools, in football and basketball.
I think we all agree, and gone over ad nauseum, if Pitt and PSU could have worked it out, and had the Eastern All Sports Conference back in the early 80’s, would have been great and ideal.
Didn’t happen.
Pretty happy where we landed.
Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
Will I miss UCONN, G-Town and Villanova, of course, but will be just as happy playing Tobacco Road.
And as far as the mid level to lower teams in both leagues, I am much happier playing GTU, Wake, Clemson, Fla. St, NC State than
playing South Florida, DePaul and Butgers.
Just my humble opinion. Off year or not for the conference, love the ACC!!
PSU 5 star recruit Holley going to FL.
Lets see if ESPN pumps up Cuse game.
Thoughts & prayers for the Bray family.
Written like GT played without 4 starters. Wrong only Carter was getting many minutes (26). Losing Carter & Durand was sort of a wash.
The other 3 were basically bench players who played some in rent-a-win games.
**Travis Jorgensen hasn’t play since November 20th. And averaged 4 ppg, shooting 31% FG
**Jason Morris only played 6 games this year and avg’d 2 ppg on 28% FG shooting (wish he would have played)
** Solomon Poole avg’d 6 ppg on 39% FG & 29% from 3. Poole scored 5 points in 2 games against MD & Duke in limited minutes.
Actually wish some of these bench players were available for them, as Golden would have got less minutes on the court.
This much is clear, gentlemen:
Len Elmore and Tom Hart have a SERIOUS crush on Pitt. Especially Len. OMG! Man if I were a GT fan I would have been pissed. John Lennon = Jesus? No. Apparently, Lamar = Jesus. Clapton = God? No, Jamie Dixon is. Gheesh!
2-Loved how well we rebounded. This worried me in the past few games.
3-Young seems to be the only reliable free throw shooter down the stretch. This worries me especially with Zana at the line.
Guess Z has been so consistent lately, it’s just another day at the office.
HOPEFULLY HE JUST NEEDS TIME TO ADJUST TO THE OTHER PLAYERS. NEEDS TO BE MORE AGRESSIVE. HELL, HE’S FROM B’KLYN SHOULD BE TOUGHER.
Lehigh over American (@Lehigh, maybe a close one)
Maryland over Notre Dame (@MD)
Duquesne over Saint Joseph’s (Dukes down by 30+)
Clemson over Virginia Tech (@VA Tech, Clemson may pull this off)
Albany over UMass-Lowell (Albany should pick up a road win)
Texas Tech over Baylor (TT at home, could be close)
North Carolina State over Wake Forest (@Wake, not likely)
Fresno State over San Diego State (@SDST, not likely)
Stanford over Washington State (Stanford should win at home)
Lunardi has been at it for weeks already. Soon it will be 365 days a year.
I’d like to play ND now as they are getting beatup pretty good by teams we dismantled, pretty much.
UMass just came from behind to beat GM by 1….sigh…
Great hockey game!
OK…which one of you guys asked PSU grad Micco this at the PG?
“Jerry, Ron Cook called Bill O’brien despicable for leaving Penn State, but had high praise for Franklin and he did the same thing. Don’t you exercise any editorial control? Or does this fall in line with the speak no evil policy you have when it comes to PSU?”
Second, I was not warm and fuzzy watching the Artis free throw. I did get the fuzzies when Young stepped to the line, cool, confident and smooth. Well done, young man. The game was real sloppy for long. Personally, I think GT missed by not playing Poole longer and earlier. That said, tough crap. Pitt outplayed them at the end of the day and the scoreboard proved it out.
Funny how we have hit the spread right on point the last two games. Pitt might be catching Syracuse a little over confident which can be dangerous. Such a fine line.
Happy to see the east coast car sales rep in the valley replace a five star with a three star. As far as recruiting is concerned, I believe they had a large number of early enrollees and if I remember correctly, they get charged back to the prior year. Is that right? If so, this new class should take a hit as far as rankings and will allow for extra signings. Did we have any/many early enrolls? So beneficial to do that!
That kind of recruiting help is what we need more of for this program! What I loved the most was that Amara is talking trash against penn state right away. Over two years until these programs get to knock helmets on the field once again and a Pitt recruit that hasn’t even signed on the dotted line yet already hates penn state.
Gotta love it! Hail to Pitt!
ha ha
In the long run, year in and year out, it will be the best basketball conference in the world.
Tobacco road off this year, ya, won’t be for long though.