we are getting absolutely crushed on the offensive glass, what gives?

how about the defensive end, can we pleeeeeeeeeeeease box out?

This game is sooo winable…give Gray the ball please.

Fran Fraschilla hit the nail on the head – Mike Cook is the only one playing smart by drawing the fouls.

If we keep going inside and just make sure we box out on D, we will win by 10. Why, oh why, does Kendall continue to shoot 3s? Just go to the hoop!! So nice to see Young getting some hoops.

We seem to get called for a lot of passive defensive fouls. Hands straight up and the opponent runs right through our chest. We get whistled. A lot of incredulous looks…

Man has Young given this team a lift. They are a completely different team with him in the mix.

nail biter eh?

Why is Kendall on the floor?
He gives you nothing offensively and often commits needless fouls!

Kendall should never be allowed to shoot.

Defending Kendall defensively – he and Young both have 4 fouls. Both are getting schooled.

This is coming down to a hell of a finish. Great shot by Fields to tie it up at 75.

OT

Fields seems to hit big shot after big shot.

Hitting some free throws would be nice.

if you cant make free throws then why are you playing the game?

what is the deal with Ramon tonight? spending a lot of time on the pine.

This is a great game to prepare us down the road. If we make free throws this game is over.

Ramon and Fields need to be in the game together now. Good FT shooters and Ramon is a 3-pt threat we need.

PITTSBURGH
PLAYER FGM-A 3PM-A FTM-A PF PTS
A Graves 4/8 4/6 3/5 1 15
A Gray 8/11 0/0 0/2 3 16
M Cook 3/4 0/0 7/9 3 13
S Young 5/10 0/1 0/0 4 10
L Fields 4/9 1/4 6/7 1 15
L Kendall 2/6 0/1 1/2 4 5
R Ramon 1/3 1/3 0/0 2 3
T Biggs 0/1 0/0 0/0 3 0
K Benjamin 0/1 0/0 0/0 1 0
M Polen 0/0 0/0 0/0 1 0
TEAM TOTALS 27/53 6/15 17/25 23 77

Sad to say but it is good that Kendall is now out. Young is more athletic and quicker. Also will give you an offensive boost.

Pitt is shooting only 64% from the line. Make the free throws and the game would have been over a long time ago.

Free Throws 18-28 (64.3%)PITT 22-26 (84.6%) OSU

*shivers*

If this team could rebound, play defense, or make free throws, this game would have been over 20 minutes ago.

The refs have really sucked in this game. Just let the guy’s play for Christ’s sake. They are calling every little shoulder rub and elbow guard. On both sides. And it’s been a terrible game to watch because of it. No flow to it, fouls galore, guys playing like they’re walking on eggshells…boo-urns.

Oh man … Levon is out, Young is out … down by 1 with 1:42 left in OT … it’s not looking good.

Why is he taking an NBA 3 when you are down by 1?
Free throws are killing us. 63%

I’m obviously biased, but was an intentional foul call really necessary?

I’m not normally like this early in *any* season…but i’ve lost a lot of hope. Doesn’t look like it will the “the year.”

Jamie Dixon has successfully beaten all of the chumps. Can’t seemed to win the meaningful games.
This may turn out to be a tougher season than expected.

free throws man free throws

It’s official…PITT CAN’T WIN BIG GAMES….in Basketball, in Football, in flipcup…in anything….why do I continue to support these shit teams….

Two words: GRAVES SUCKS!!!

Forcing a three when they are up one and then the intentional foul. This from one of your seniors. What an idiot!!!

Why does every decent player have his career game against Pitt. This is the third time a guy has done that to us this season. WTF?

The season is not lost. It’s basketball not football. You lost back to back to top 15 teams, it happens. But, free throws should have been made. Pitt beat itself.

no power forward on this team

you have to be kidding me, i hand this loss to our savior, aaron gray. missed FTs, missed RBs, the guy just wasn’t there and i’m sad. very sad. they played well as a team, but blew it. they were the better team and when you lose games like this, it makes me worry, but not give up like some fairweather queers.

Ramon and Kendall were non-existent offensively this game. Sam Young was inspiring, committed several pointless fouls though. Ref’s seemed to be calling everything…missed free throws killed us.

Graves made two key mistakes late ( NBA three that he missed, and the intentional foul)

whatever

Once again, a mediocre-to-decent team with one good player beats us. Note to the coaches: IDENTIFY THE ONLY GOOD PLAYER AND, Y’KNOW, LIKE, DEFEND HIM A LITTLE.

This is nonsense. To lose a game like this was inexcusable. I can’t remember when the last time a Pitt team tried their absolute best to give away a game.

1. 18 Offensive rebounds. Are you freaking kidding me??? This is ludicrous. And to give up the late ones like they did is even worse.

2. Aaron Gray and Antonio Graves did not lose the game as others suggested. Gray had 24 and many key rebounds. Yes, he missed free throws, but he’s not perfect. Graves shot 50% from the field and 66% from 3 point land. Again, yes he made a mistake in taking a bad three in the 2nd overtime, but HE’S NOT PERFECT. Instead….

3. Blame this loss on the the offensive rebounds, too many fouls (AGAIN), and the two stiffs Levon Kendall and Tyrell Biggs. As soon as they came in on more than one occasion, they fouled someone inexplicably and came right back out. All this talk about Kendall being the glue to this team is pissing me off. This guy has done nothing but miss shots, foul, and play bad defense in the past two games. And the semi-strong showing Biggs has shown in some games has completely disappeared.

THIS IS NUTS. We have played like a crap team for two straight games (although this one wasn’t as bad). Dick Groat is on the radio saying they played their hearts out…unbelievable. Did you miss those 18 Offensive boards, Mr. Groat?

Drinking the Kool-Aid and saying, “Well, we lost to two very good teams” is unacceptable. The defense has sucked and the rebouding has been worse. How have we gotten outrebounded in two straight games now?

cmoe on you can’t be too hard on graves, that was a flop and he kept us in the game with the threes we coudln’t get from ramon. you guys are forgetting that these were just two unbelieveably hard road games, we need to keep our heads up. however, for some reason, our team did cause a ridiculous amount of stupid fouls. we shoudln’t even have forced it to ot, but some fall your way, some don’t… season’s not over though.

it came to the FTs and they blew it. less than 70% as a team is sad and unfortunate. i love graves, had an overall great game. he whacks 3s unlike no other. and really , is levon the reincarnation of krauser? the shot, just reminds me, i love him though and i think he will be the best PG they have seen in a while.

go byu?

I’m pissed they lost because if they hit a few more FTs, the game was theirs. That 3 Graves took was foolish, the intentional foul was unlucky. But Graves kept this team in the game. He played big at some important moments. They showed flashes of what kind of team this could – and still might – be.

Good thing I had a Mad Elf during the OT. That 11% alcohol content is keeping me nice and mellow right now.

What’s the point of going 9 deep if you cant beat a team that has 6 guys??

This just really pisses me off…mostly because this is supposed to be our year. I’m a Pitt grad (class of ’01) and have sat through the crap years of the mid-late 90s.

I’m sick of giving up games we should be winning. I can write off the Wisconsin game to a bad night in a tough environment, but this game tonight? It was a complete and utter joke. The offensive rebounds killed us and our free throw shooting Vs. theirs wasn’t even a contest.

I’m glad Sam Young showed something tonight because this Levon Kendall stuff is getting out of hand. His minutes need to be drastically cut if he’s going to keep playing like this.

The article on ESPN.com said a lot of NBA scouts were keeping an eye on him. I’m guessing that any scout who’s seen the last two games would be moving on by now. This guy has shown absolutely nothing and not only has he not been contributing, he’s been partly the reason our defense and rebounding has been awful.

Good point Jake –

Carmen – I should have joined you on that Mad Elf…working tomorrow has kept me from drinking but it might have been a good idea tonight. 🙂

This is the time where you should see what kind of team we will have. You lost two road games to quality opponents. One of two things will happen. This team will either come out guns blazing and realize what they need to do, or they will fold. As much as we can sit here and blame the players and foul shotting why dont we look at Dixon himself. Why do you take Fields out of the game? Why dont you have Ramon and fields in there together? I understand that Graves played some decent minutes and did well on Curry. But once again he does those 2 stupid things when it hurts the most. The players play, but Dixon needs to improve as well. Lets not forget that. Keep the faith in this team. It is still way to early to tell what might happen. Remember we never played games like this, this early in the seaon before. Lets hope they dont fold, learn from it and improve.

This Pitt team reminds me of the one from two years ago that thought much too highly of itself and acted as if playing sound, fundamental basketball was beneath them, then wound up getting bounced by Pacific in the first round of the tournament.

This group is more talented, but their attitudes appear to be the same, and they’re similarly ugly to watch. Shame on the veterans on this team for allowing this to happen, and shame on the coaching staff as well.

Forgive me if this question sounds ingorant, because I live in Baltimore and only get to see the nationally televised games now, for the most part, but: after watching two games in a row now, I have to wonder what does Tyrell Biggs do that he actually gets decent minutes? He doesn’t rebound, he doesn’t shoot or post anyone up, he can’t guard anyone….what exactly does this guy bring to the table

I whole-heartedly agree with the coaching point (something I didn’t mention in my tirade). Dixon and others should be held accountable for not only some of the things mentioned above, but also for overplaying Kendall in my opinion.

Jeff in Baltimore – Biggs has played well at times and last year as a freshman even showed some promise. That in my opinion has been the basis for his increase in playing time. But just watching recently, I could understand how someone would ask what he’s done to merit such a reward. He’s played downright terrible the past couple of games. I really think they’re trying to get him some minutes because next year, he could well be our starting power forward with Kendall graduating. He’ll probably even play minutes at center because we won’t even have one player next year with any experience at the position. We have a couple of young players coming in, but no one with experience.

This team played its heart out tonight. Gray is a MAN. This game makes us a better team in March. However, I agree with all the negative feelings toward Kendall. He should be benched and Young should start, period. Gray is a player, Kendall is not. Young EARNED more playing time tonight. Hopefully we can rebound from this loss and make shit happen in the conference season.

I’m all for playing a tougher non-con slate but never actually winning one against a ranked team hampers our bona fides considerably. Bring on the cupcakes and the misleading 25-6 record followed by the fantastical #3 seed. Staggering to the finish line at 20-11 and a #8 seed isn’t doing us any NCAA favors.

A double overtime loss is not a big deal. We just need to rebound the ball.

This team showed a lot this evening. I am more optimistic after this loss.

Oakland Uber Alles – I agree. Whenever people were bashing us for our non-con schedule, I always pointed to two things:

1. Pitt was NOT the only team to do it
2. Playing in the Big East more than makes up for the cupcakes

After seeing the schedule this year and all of the negative publicity we got for scheduling lightly in the past, I kind of thought maybe we needed to do it. But now losing our two games against non-con ranked opponents, we’re probably going to have to have our usual stellar record in the Big East just to get back to a 3 seed.

All the people bashing Pitt for the light schedule in the past really forced their hand, and now it looks like it won’t help us in tournament seedings anyway. I don’t know if we’ll be an 8 seed, but losing both games probably is going to not land us a #1 or #2 seed unless we really go on a tear and win both the regular season AND tournament conference championships (remember that even when we won the tourney conference before, we still only ended up with a three seed).

I’ve been saying for years Kendall is an overrated player. I just dont see it. I knew this was going to be a tough game. I was a little disappointed that a referee call basically decided the game at the end after 2 teams played their guts out in a clean double overtime performance. Thats not the way it should have went down wether Pitt won or lost. Was graves foul intnetional? technically yes but come on how do you make that call and basically decide the game is over at that point. This team really needs a shooter that isnt afraid to put it up in the clutch. As much as I didnt like Krausers style of play he was never afraid to make the move or take the shot when we needed it.

As for a clutch shooter, Fields is starting to look like one. He and Young (last year at least) always seem to hit big shots when we need them. Ramon could be that guy, if he was ever on the freaking floor!

I’ve never been a huge Dixon fan. I agree that Dixon needs to be held accountable, particularly for his choices about who is on the floor when. I realize you have to match up with who the other team has on the floor, but Biggs was completely ineffective, and Benjamin, while smaller, is very athletic and can get rebounds. He needs more PT.

Overall, Dixon hasn’t done a good job of managing his “9 starters.”

Rex – I completely agree with you on Kendall and even partially on Graves. But I can’t blame the ref for making that call. When I first saw it in real time, it looked terrible…like he basically clothes-lined him. It didn’t look as bad in slow-motion during the replay, but it still looked bad…although to me, it looked like a blatant mistake.

At the end of the day, I can’t place the blame on the ref, even if it did decide the game. As a defensive player, you have to go for the ball. Graves clearly either didn’t or he made a terrible effort at it and it didn’t come across that way to the refs.

When the ref is seeing that play in real-time, I can understand the call. I’m more frustrated at Graves for making the silly foul.