I can’t even muster the rage I had last week.
Saw it coming. Knew it would happen. Still, couldn’t hide my shock at the way it went down.
Pitt shot 4-24 in the second half. Which on its face would be amazingly bad. But it gets worse. They came out of the break going 3-6 in the first 5 minutes. Up 47-35. From there, Pitt would make only one more shot from the floor. An astounding 1-18 over 15 minutes. 12 points the rest of the way with the free throws.
Yet, they still only lost by 4 with a chance to send it to OT or win in the final seconds. That should tell you how bad this game was if you were lucky enough not to have watched.
Wake Forest improved minimally over the second half. Shooting a little better, and a little more aggressive on the defense. They weren’t staging a furious comeback or digging deep to find something in themselves. They just were against a team that imploded.
Yes, losing Mike Young at that point was a killer with foul trouble. He was having a great game. But, so what? Wake had their best player, John Collins sitting on the bench for chunks of both halves with his own foul troubles. Both players ended up playing 28 minutes.
The refs may have lost their mind with 31 fouls called in the second half (42 for the game). It may have disrupted all flow and pleasure — ANYONE could take from the game. But that should have been a bigger problem for a Wake Forest team that wants to go up and down the court and plays up-tempo, then Pitt.
Pitt came out of the gate ready to play. There was energy and enthusiasm from the start. Wake couldn’t handle things. The Demon Deacons were sloppy with the ball. They didn’t play good defense and missed a lot of shots.
Pitt wasn’t lights out — except from behind the arc, but Mike Young was hot (17 points on 6-10 and 2-2 on 3s) and Jamel Artis was off to a solid start as well (8 points, 3-5 overall and 2-3 on 3s). Typically masking that the rest of the team was 3-14 shooting.
The problem was the rest of the team stayed cold — improbably shooting 3-14 in the second half as well. And Artis went 0-6 and Mike Young, even with the foul trouble could only go 1-4.
Unlike the VT game, Coach Kevin Stallings seemed as beaten and down from this as the team. Not angry. Just down. It’s happened so many times this year.
“We didn’t finish,” Stallings said. “We didn’t have that finishing mentality. We’ve struggled this year when we’ve given up the lead late. We haven’t been good at giving up the lead late and then getting it back.”
Marquette. That is the only game this year where Pitt game back from being down to win. Other than that, there is the Louisville game where Jamel Artis put the team on his back to almost do the impossible. Otherwise — and god do I hate typing this about a Pitt team — this group is as mentally soft as you could see.
The players don’t have any answers.
The Panthers have made at least five 3-pointers in the first half of four consecutive games and made 25 of 39 (51.0 percent) first-half attempts. But Pitt is 10 of 35 (28.6 percent) on second-half 3-point attempts over that stretch.
“I don’t know what the problem is at this point,” sophomore Cameron Johnson said of Pitt’s second-half struggles. “We had the balance with the second team in the first half. This just isn’t a good look.”
One other stat that glares at me. Pitt only had 8 offensive rebounds in the game. How does a team that shot 30% for the game only manage 8 offensive rebounds?
This loss locks Pitt into a Tuesday game for the ACC Tournament.
As I always need to preface, it was time for Dixon to go…but Dixon wins last night’s game because, hate it if you will, the uber-controlling Dixon offense was designed to work the ball until someone on a team of players who cannot create their own shot, gets open.
Stallings’ offense and coaching has shown almost NO ABILITY to run plays that accomplish this.
In sum, yeah, it is Stallings fault. Players sure could have made those contested shots fall. But the coach needs to coach a team offense that actually gets guys open…particularly players that cannot create their own shot.
I also don’t buy the idea that leaving the Big East is directly attributed to our decline. I know others disagree on this, and thats fine. Indirectly, maybe.
I get the lack of local recruiting, but you don’t need to fill 85 scholarships either. To me football has more of a ceiling…
I should have added this. There is a ceiling with Stallings here. I tried to get behind this guy. I really did. But his age, the task at hand, his track record, and what I’ve seen…this is a firing waiting to happen….
Be unrelenting in finding that coach. Look at football…5-ish years of one coach after another, recruiting deteriorated to nothing because of it, all in a state of Chaos…and yet, it could quite be possible, we found a great coach. The next few years will tell, we but know enough to keep Nards around for a while longer to find that out.
With Stallings, we have already figured it out. He could be good, yes. But not great. Pitt cannot be great in Bball without a great coach…it just can’t. So find one, and if we swing and miss, like we just did, LET IT GO and try again. And again. 5 years of crap would be worth it…WAY HARD on us fans, but worth it in the end.
Good things come on Saturdays.
A REPRIEVE from despair… albeit brief… will be just what the Doctor ordered for the suffering Pitt Faithful.
I can’t speak for anyone but myself. This season is more on Dixon. To have a four year starting point guard and no replacement is inexcusable. Stallings will have his guys next year with the luxury of a six year contract.
I just don’t see a happy ending to the Stallings era…
From what I’ve read, the last time around there just wasn’t high quality interest in the Pitt BB job. Maybe that was because of Barnes. Who knows.
JJ – I heard those rumors too (about lack of interest), just nothing I ever trusted as accurate. Barnes had his man early on, and that was it, and he set up certain expectations that he did not deliver on, ultimately putting KS in a tough position. Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded bringing in a young coach (even BK) and letting him try to build something his way. Frankly, we tried that with the Fraud hiring on the fb side, and even though that was a disaster due to his character (and in hindsight he turned out to be a sub-par coach), I have no problem with us taking a shot like that. That’s the kind of hire I wanted on the hoops side, someone on the younger side, passionate recruiter, etc.
And I agree with UPitt on the baseball facilities. Dogshit. And the coaching is worse. Tough to field a competitive team in any Northern location given the weather. Hence probably why they went cheap…the Rooney way.
The WF game is a perfect example of his coaching ability. You have a 16 point lead inside of 2 min in the first half why is Young on the court with 2 fouls ? He picks up his 3rd foul inside of 1 min of the first half there is where the game unwound.
Jamie made the NCAAs 11 out of 13 and with a grad transfer at guard to manage the team would have made it a 12th time with this senior bunch. I predict Pitt will be lucky to make the NCAAs 2 times in the next 13 years. By the time Stallings is fired the program will be so wrecked that no coach will want or can resurrect Pitt basketball.
