It definitely wasn’t one of Pitt’s best efforts on the court. Freshman, Keith Benjamin, wanted to make this game his “coming-out party,” but it was all Carl Krauser. And it needed to be. The Richmond Spiders played a tough game against Pitt. They were physically overmatched but they still collapsed inside and took the pounding. Two of their guys fouled out banging so much against bigger stronger Pitt players, but they did their jobs.
Pitt had trouble with the Spider defense, turning the ball over 18 times. Very careless with the ball.
Chevy Troutman had a horrible games with only 8 points on 2-8 shooting, 4 turnovers, 0 blocks, and had Len Elmore jinx him by saying he had become an “outstanding” free throw shooter so that he was only 4-7 at the line. The only positive for Troutman was that he still had 10 rebounds (7 offensive) so he was still mucking.
Taft had a decent game with 11 points on 4-8 shooting, 3-4 from the free throw line, 8 rebounds and 3 blocks. He seemed frustrated with the collapsing defense, but kept himself in check.
Demetrius played 36 minutes but only shot 3 times. He was out there scrapping on defense and helping pass the ball.
Ramon played 35 minutes, and put defense first. He still scored 10 points, but he seemed to understand that playing defense keeps you out on the court.
Richmond just did a great job of keeping the ball from getting inside to Taft and Troutman.
About 4 minutes into the second half, Richmond down by 3 and Pitt unable to get the ball inside, and turning it over a lot because of the zone pressure. I started thinking about the Syracuse game last February. And as if on cue, the ESPN2 crew started talking about that game — though, only in terms of the one time Pitt has lost at the Pete, not in terms of similarity of defensive schemes.
Still Pitt was just too talented, and Richmond wasn’t able to keep shooting at around 50% like it did in the first half. If Pitt could have made its free throws (16-28) the game wouldn’t have gotten tight in the last 4 minutes.
The bench was mixed. Aaron Gray is going to keep earning more minutes. He only played 10 minutes but took good shots inside and decent defense.
Mark McCarroll’s bad start continued. He just had no shot last night 1-6 shooting and 0-4 at the charity stripe. He was, though, working much harder on defense. He had 5 rebounds and a block.
I don’t know if Benjamin’s declarations about showing his skills rubbed Coach Jamie Dixon and the rest of the staff the wrong way, but Benjamin was only on the court for 8 minutes. He seemed mostly a non-factor.
DeGroat did not play.
The game, though, was Krauser’s. He was just on his game. A career high 31 points on 9-18 shooting (6-8 on 3s). He played all 40 minutes and was just energy out there. This was what Pitt needed to win the game. He was hot, and with Richmond continually collapsing inside, Pitt needed to make the outside shots. Richmond had speed to close the gap so Ramon and Demetrius either took contested shots or didn’t feel comfortable and passed on shots. Krauser was the only outside threat who could get the ball off quickly against Richmond.
Other notes and thoughts. Hated those Richmond unis. The style reminded me of the mid-90s Atlanta Hawks jerseys with white on the shoulders instead of yellow.
Ray Fittipaldo, the P-G Pitt basketball beat writer has his Q&A up, with the usual question about Demetrius and his take on the reported interest USC had in Jamie Dixon.
The dance team looked good.
