A historic loss for Providence. They have never started 0-7 in Big East play, so it’s time for gallows humor. The players and coach admit that they were just physically overwhelmed by Pitt.

This time, the Providence College men’s basketball team didn’t have to wait until the final minute to lose yet another Big East Conference game.
…
“It’s almost like the Steelers,” PC coach Tim Welsh said of Pitt. “They keep coming at you up the middle, off tackle. They can pound you up.”
…
Throughout its four-year run atop the Big East, Pitt has played with the confidence and strength to wear out some opponents. That clearly happened here last night. PC did a solid job off the boards in the first half, with Pitt holding a 15-13 advantage, but was overwhelmed in the second 20 minutes. The Panthers ended up winning the overall rebound battle, 39-24. PC’s starting frontline had 9 rebounds, the same number of defensive boards Taft swallowed up.

“They have a lot of good inside players,” said PC’s Hill. “We stayed with them for awhile, but they keep coming at you and we didn’t keep it up.”

One sequence typified the difference between the two teams. Down 62-45 with 10 minutes left, the Friars stopped the Panthers twice but couldn’t chase down loose rebounds. Krauser, the Bronx-born guard, jumped out of bounds to save the ball and threw it high in the air and back into play. Taft then powered past Hill and slammed home an offensive rebound to bring the 11,685 fans to their feet.

In my notes about that sequence, I wrote that Pitt was just wanting the ball more. Pitt had a killer instinct going throughout the game. They were going to finish Providence, and not give them any reason to hope. And they did exactly that.

This game seemed to by the Taft and Krauser show. Especially Taft, who had a career high 25 points. His previous career high was 24, set last year against Providence.

“I was just out there, telling myself that I had to be aggressive,” Taft said. “I had that mind-set. This was a game we had to win.”

That has to be Pitt’s attitude in every game, really. The games like Providence, you can’t take easy, because you can’t lose to weaker foes. The games like Notre Dame, BC, Syracuse and UConn are games you need to prove you are among the best.

The article also notes that Pitt great, Julius Page, was at the game, but is leaving Pittsburgh and the ABA to join a team in Russia. Good luck Julius.

Krauser also gets some love for his good game and improved play.

The flamboyant Krauser, a junior point guard, finished with 19 points, nine assists (many of the flashy variety) and only one turnover in 38 Harlem Globetrotter-style minutes. Taft, a sophomore center, bullied his way to a career-high 25 points and 15 rebounds, as he and Krauser consistently displayed their New York City bravado to the overwhelmed Friars.
…
Krauser, who had taken some heat in recent weeks for committing too many turnovers, controlled the floor from start to finish. The first sign that he was ready to put on a show occurred early, when he dribbled behind his back, through his legs, then behind his back again before exploding to the hoop past two Providence defenders for a double-pump layup that made it 9-4.

“I just went back to playing my style of basketball again,” said Krauser, who had 19 points in a win against Syracuse two nights earlier.

Safe to say, no one will complain too much about Krauser’s flashiness and trash talking when he is playing the way he has the last couple of games.

In an end note to the article, it says that Yuri Demetris had all charges dropped against him, but he will remain suspended from the basketball team for the rest of the season. I think that’s the right decision for the program. There’s really nothing else to say about that. Sad ending, and I hope he gets the help he needs.

Finally, a little love for Coach Jamie Dixon for weathering his first real rough patch.

It was clear that Dixon could coach, but you wondered: How would he handle the inevitable thunderstorms that strike every program from time to time?

Quite well, as it turns out.

Dixon just slapped the raincoat on and kept working when the weather got bad. He met the sorts of difficulties any successful college coach will meet if he sticks around long enough — only he faced them in a matter of a month.

Pitt lost to three inferior opponents, including Bucknell; Dixon’s name surfaced in a Los Angeles Times headline as a candidate for the USC job; and senior starter Yuri Demetris was suspended.
…
You could say Dixon was forced to try new buttons because of the Demetris situation, and that he was playing Demetris way too much (Demetris doesn’t swat a Ryan Gomes shot, as Levon Kendall did last night), but his in-game adjustments against Syracuse were superb.

Dixon has been doing a fine job so far. He got the team to make the adjustment to using zone defense when needed, and it would appear that he is integrating the new players and finally responded to the challenge of giving the kids a chance. It helps that the new players seem to be buying into the system and the unselfish play.

I think it was also important to see the new players getting a chance for the future. When you go to top recruits, you can’t just tell them they will have a chance to earn playing time and start. You have to show examples. Dixon can point to Taft from last year, and to Ramon, Benjamin and Kendall all as examples of either starting or earning significant playing time on merit.