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January 27, 2015

For us anyways. Buzz Williams made the surprising jump to VT last spring. As well as VT making the surprising financial commitment to him. As tough and miserable as his Marquette teams have made Pitt at times, he will always hold a special place in my heart for pissing off WVU fans by dancing a bit to “Country Roads” after knocking off the Hoopies.

7pm on ESPNU. I’m just getting home in time.

Artis and Young have been relatively consistent offensively. Let’s see if more than one guard can help with the offense tonight.





Was even worse with Birch. 15 minutes a game. I would have walked too had I had his talent.

The one game Birch got some minutes, against Penn, when Sleepy couldn’t play, he responded with a Double/Double.

Comment by Emel 01.28.15 @ 1:09 am

Truly hopes Jamie lands Diallo and Dillard, for his sake.

And for our sake ! (and our liver’s sake)

Comment by Emel 01.28.15 @ 2:23 am

Moving to football, I just saw a pat signal on Twitter this morning sent from Bradinton, Florida.

Comment by Justinian 01.28.15 @ 7:18 am

Ontario Lett has recruited as many players as the entire Pitt staff. Smoke supposedly has extensive ties on the AAU circuit. Where are the recruits ? He’s been on the job since June and nothing

Comment by Chick 01.28.15 @ 7:27 am

So I woke up this morning pinched myself and looked at the box score and yep..we did lose to VT, how far have we fallen??…

Comment by Keith 01.28.15 @ 7:42 am

This is the kind of year that makes our prior years under Jamie so fabulous. 2 more years and recruiting starting this year must show improvement.

Agree with those above on the need to foul and not give them a 3 pt opportunity, and the time-outs at the end helped VT more than Pitt.

I do not agree that Louisville took it easy on us Sunday but I’ve tended to see ACC coaches support their in conference opponent for the good of the whole.

Comment by TVax 01.28.15 @ 8:01 am

Buzz has won his last 4 games vs Jamie. Coaching?

Comment by alcofan 01.28.15 @ 8:08 am

All Pitt wins this year (except Chaminade): Opponent scores 68 or less.

All Pitt losses this year: Opponent scores 68 or more.

Dino Gaudio – who was not an ACC coach for long – candidly pointed out the defensive failings last night – Jones and Newkirk collapse to the paint instead of sticking with their guy on the wing, Young and Artis don’t cover the roll guy quickly enough. Like someone said, Jones has an IQ of 0, and I’d put Newkirk in there with him. Our guys are not good defensively, and we need to get back to that. It might take a little time to get our recruiting back to those type of kids, but we need it with Dixon’s philosophies.
Nuff said.

Comment by KeyboardKev 01.28.15 @ 8:10 am

I get the NBA League Pass and enjoy good basketball. I rarely miss a Pitt bball game as well. Pitt has to be one of the slowest moving offenses in the history of the modern game. Last night’s contest was so boring, I fell asleep with ten minutes to go.

We have terrible outside shooting the majority of the time, have trouble penetrating, and constantly turn the ball over. Good grief.

Comment by AJ 01.28.15 @ 8:18 am

Since Jamie will be at Pitt for a while, he needs to hire an assistant coach who knows nothing about basketball but understands the law of averages. Someone intelligent enough who knows how to make suggestions when a game is on the line. Obviously, there is a dire need for this type of coach on Pitt’s basketball team because Jamie lacks these skills.

Comment by MariettaMike 01.28.15 @ 8:21 am

I said in earlier post this team will struggle to .500. Seeing it painfully unfold before us. I’m not yet a JD hater but allowing the team to degrade to this level sits squarely with the HC. he is responsible for recruiting the players and developing them.

This team will be home watching All tournaments no matter what initials they have – from Oakland.

Comment by Pitt it Is 01.28.15 @ 8:47 am

Maybe being an assistant for JD isn’t as easy as it sounds, he does all the talking, rambles on, never seems to look for advise, his forehead is always in stress mode…if you were a recruit would you want to play that boring style? Look how little time the bench gets, bad pass or PF and you are yanked! He under utilized Adams (set a screen at the top of the key, go under the basket, repeat, etc.).
I watched the last 5 minutes of the game and the OT, he lost control of the game with the TOs…I think the game has passed him by!
Someone mentioned how tight Newk played, maybe he’s on such a short leash he’s more afraid of what not to do, versus playing the game.

JR’s man scored 3-3PTers down the stretch, why was he left alone?

Comment by markp 01.28.15 @ 8:51 am

keyboard kev, it’s not only Nuke and Jones .. did you see the play where Wright ran into Young and took both out of the play? And Guadio seemed to blame Artis for the basket even though he had 2 guys to guard

Comment by wbb 01.28.15 @ 9:27 am

Maybe Jamie ought to shorten his bench and stop giving players 1-3 minutes. Pick a guy in practice and let him know he will play 10-15 minutes, I would rather see one guy get 10 than three guys get three. Make a choice and stick with it.

There is no continuity, VT’s ball movement was so superior to Pitt it was ridiculous. Turnovers are one thing but unforced errors are not acceptable this late in the year.

I don’t understand why we give up so many uncontested threes. Also, if you are going to foul a guy making a layup make sure he dos not make the layup.

Comment by gc 01.28.15 @ 9:51 am

wbb, you’re right – I forgot about that play. Looks like everyone had their moments last night – Gaudio even caught Luther not cutting off the baseline.

Comment by KeyboardKev 01.28.15 @ 10:24 am

Gaudio also made a point on how to attack a double team on the low post .. with 2 passes, that Duke excelled in and VT did a great shot getting an open (mostl3 pt) shot.

I can see doubling Okafor but there was no need to double the VT post men, all you had to do was front them.

Comment by wbb 01.28.15 @ 10:36 am

@emel, ya Diallo and Dillard would be nice, but
they won’t contribute till 2018.

They have to learn how to play Jamie’s way, behind Haughton and Uchebo.

Then a year of learning how to play defense.

So, we’re a long way off from seeing them.

Comment by Dan 01.28.15 @ 10:55 am

Is Diallo a one and done?

Comment by gc 01.28.15 @ 10:58 am

I am however glad, that Damon Wilson is
coming next year, so he has a year to learn how to play the point the way it was meant to be
played under James Robinson!!

Comment by Dan 01.28.15 @ 10:58 am

Pitt’s man-to-man defense is everything but. Look at how many to times a VT forward was open in the corner. Every time Pitt tried to double team the ball, they gave up an open three. A simple solution, guard your man — that’s what man-to-man defense is all about. But Pitt is so undisciplined they get caught many time letting a man get opened. I blame Jamie because it’s his job to teach offense and defense.

If Jamie wants to save his job he should recruit good street ball players and let them play. Micromanaging just does not work with 100 IQ people because they just don’t listen or can’t comprehend what they are supposed to do.

Comment by MariettaMike 01.28.15 @ 11:24 am

A quick google search of. 2016 NBA draft projections shows that Diallo is projected to be in lottery. So regardless of reality, his perception has to be that he’s one and done. If Jamie is thinking that he won’t be productive until. 2018, then he should not recruit him.

Comment by Boubacar Aw 01.28.15 @ 12:35 pm

Our problem isn’t guard play and Wilson or 5 more like him aren’t going to fix it. The problem is our defense. JD is very good at working his system but when the parts are missing he isn’t too swift at adjusting. Until we have a capable big guy in the middle we are going to be lucky to make the NIT. The cast that we have are about as good as those that came before them. The difference is the other teams had a center.

Comment by spiritofsection22 01.28.15 @ 12:54 pm

That was a joke right Dan-o ?

When he gets in the lane, it’s like the lane becomes quicksand. ha

Comment by Emel 01.28.15 @ 1:10 pm

Got to disagree sos22….the guards is one of the big problems, as neither can they penetrate, finish or dish. And neither can they shoot 3’s on a consistent basis.

And finally none of them can defend worth crap except for Wright and he’s not as good this year either.
As opposing guard whoever they are, routinely blow by all of them and get right to the hoop.

There’s nothing that any of them do extremely well or even just good. They are all below average and as a group they stink.

Comment by Emel 01.28.15 @ 1:15 pm

If we had 2 guards that avg’d 12-15 ppg every game, guards that could penetrate and then cause teams to switch on defense on help defense, that would lead to a whole lot of easy baskets on either the finish at the rim by the guard or the dishoff when the big came over on the help defense.

We get almost none of that at all. As when Robinson tries to do it, he mostly gets stuck in the lane, cause he can’t finish and since no big has to switch off on help defense, there are no open passes to our un-open bigs. He is then forced to throw up some funky looking off balance shot, that is either swatted or harmlessly bounces off the rim.

Newkirk is much quicker off the dribble and the bounce, but he is not yet a very good finisher, except on the break, where he is getting better at throwing it down. In the half-court he is struggling, with not being able to finish as well, and he doesn’t get the calls much on the bumps and strips of the ball so he loses it(turns it over).

And of course, as we know we get almost no production from the 3 point line from the guards, unless Newkirk is on or Robinson gets lucky.

So they can’t penetrate, the can’t defend and they don’t shoot 3’s well. So how can the guards not be a problem.

And since guards control the flow of the offense, this is why our offense looks so disjointed at times.

You can’t win (except over rent-a-wins & bottom tier teams) with that kind of guard play.

Comment by Emel 01.28.15 @ 1:29 pm

When Patterson was hurt last year we still won games with less than what we have this year because we had Zanna in the middle. When they blow by our guards there is no one to back them up. Our guards look worse because we don’t have a center. They are no worse than they have been for the last few years. We have won plenty of games with our guards but now that there isn’t a center we are in trouble.

Comment by spiritofsection22 01.28.15 @ 2:07 pm

Patterson still played sos22. And he ran the offense, as sort of a Point forward, 2 guard.

Our guards are worse because they are running the show now. No Patterson.

Comment by Emel 01.28.15 @ 2:22 pm

Two years ago, Woodall led the team in scoring and assists. And the assists were by a large margin.

We also had a much deeper bench, with Moore, Ziegler and Durand Durand. Wright was the 10th man.

Comment by Emel 01.28.15 @ 2:26 pm

This is the first year, that Robinson by himself is running the offense.

His first year he had Woodall running the show.
His 2nd year he had Lamar running the show.

Both of those players led the team in assists in those year, not Robinson.

This is certainly Robinson’s team now.

Comment by Emel 01.28.15 @ 2:37 pm

Which explains why the offense is so bad and you get beat by a win-less VT, almost lose to a win-less GT and very easily could have lost to one win BC.

Comment by Emel 01.28.15 @ 2:40 pm

Dan72 mentioned he saw Robinson play at DeMatha and he said, he was never in the game himself running their offense, as he wasn’t the staring PG.

Woodall was also the 6th man on his HS team.

Comment by Emel 01.28.15 @ 2:42 pm

We can’t even recruit starting PG’s the last several years. Sheesh

Damon Wilson will be a novelty.

Comment by Emel 01.28.15 @ 2:57 pm

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