Dan Marino, the great Pitt QB, after a decent career in the NFL with the Miami Dolphins, has managed to get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Nice to see a kid from Pitt manage to have a decent career and get this surprising accolade.

Best article on Marino can be found here.

Completely off-topic, but when they kept calling Herber’s name (pronounced Hair-bare) from WVU, it really threw me off. Kept thinking of the bad Hanna-Barbara cartoon, The Hair Bear Bunch. Why no one in WVU’s student section hasn’t created their own little “Herber Bunch” cheering group is beyond me. I mean, other than the fact that most of them probably weren’t even born when they were showing.

Obviously, this was an upset and the storylines were the sheer volume of 3s taken by WVU and the career game by Pittsnogle. You can also throw in, that yesterday was WVU Coach Beilein’s birthday.

Luck is a difficult thing to quantify. I generally buy into the theory that luck is the result of working hard and taking advantage of an opening. One saw a fair amount of luck, or the ball bouncing WVU’s way in the second half.

But perhaps the most fortunate moment of all for the Mountaineers came early in the second half, at just the time West Virginia was clawing its way back from an 11-point deficit against the Panthers. In a scene right out of the Keystone Kops, there were nine bodies sprawled on the floor in a fight for a loose ball — five Panthers and four Mountaineers. The exception was Kevin Pittsnogle, who reached down as the ball popped out of the pile, turned and took three steps and a dribble to the basket for a ridiculously easy dunk.

“Now that’s what you call luck,” Beilein would say later. “And sometimes when you get a lucky bounce like that, it’s all you need to turn your fortunes around.”

Just one of those things. It was also a much needed win for Coach Beilein. He was starting to catch heat from Mountaineer fans.

John Beilein’s offense has been criticized more of late than Mountain State politicians.

Really. New Gov. Joe Manchin, who attended Saturday’s WVU game with No. 16 Pittsburgh, is in his honeymoon. For Beilein, though, well, the honeymoon is over. That ended when the coachÂ’s team lost to rival Marshall in Charleston.

But give Beilein credit for knowing his constituents — and how to win back their hearts.

Rivalry game wins can do that.

In Pittsburgh, the issue is the effort put forth by Pitt in the game. Especially the second half. It’s a fair criticism.

The latest step back taken by the Pitt Panthers could be attributed to a great many things, from West Virginia rediscovering how to hit a three in the second half, to unpredictable long rebounds, and even to a couple of calls that might have gone the other way.

Still, the Panthers’ Carl Krauser had no trouble identifying No. 16 Pitt’s major flaw in an 83-78 come-from-ahead, overtime loss to the unranked Mountaineers on Saturday night at the WVU Coliseum.

“We didn’t do things right in the second half,” Krauser said. “That’s closing out on shooters, switching out on ‘D.’ They had way better looks in the second half.

“I’ll chalk that up just to effort, sometimes a lack of effort.”

For a team that had already lost to Bucknell and Georgetown at home and St. John’s on the road, such a declaration must be interpreted as disappointing at best and alarming at worst, particularly this late in a season and in a rivalry game.

When asked how he was interpreting it, Krauser back-pedaled.

The effort in question should be about the defense, not the offense, and definitely not one player. Pitt did a good job in the first half harrying and keeping WVU from getting good looks from beyond the arc. There were a lot of WVU possessions where they finally seemed to throw up the ball in frustration that no one was getting free in the first half. In the second, though, they started getting open looks.

In a truly bizarre column, Ron Cook he questions the team effort, but only goes after one player.

The best place to start, probably, is with Krauser. His night was very much like Pitt’s night. For most of the game, he was solid in every phase of the game. At times, he was downright spectacular. But, in the end, sadly, he wasn’t quite good enough.

Problem is, the entire column dwells and ends with Krauser. Krauser started slowly shooting. He was 0-4 in the first half, but had 6 assists, 5 rebounds and only 1 turnover. In the second half, he was 4-6 for 11 points, 5 more assists and 2 rebounds. Even in the OT where he took a couple bad shots, he still made a 3, grabbed an offensive rebound and had 4 assists. So where are the problems?

Not getting a shot off to end the first half is cited. At best it would have been a deep, wild shot. Cook was straining. The only part he can criticize Krauser is for some bad shots put up in the OT. Forget that Pitt committed a turnover when Graves made a pathetic, telegraphed pass to Taft that was stolen by Pittsnogle who was then fouled by Kendall as he dropped in a score — Kendall fouled out on that. Pittsnogle couldn’t miss in OT. He scored 8 points (2-2 shooting and 3-3 at the line) and had a steal.

The shots at Krauser are mindblowing. Two bad shots and not throwing up a shot to end the half? That’s it? That’s his support for showing Krauser’s/Pitt’s problems? Good god, I know getting a column into print given the time constraints is difficult, but this is so far wide of the mark.

Cook wanted to blame Krauser for the loss — mainly, I’m guessing for the shots in OT — but the facts didn’t back him up. Krauser only had 2 turnovers. He dished the ball well. Pitt made the shots, Krauser was solid on defense. There just wasn’t enough evidence, but damn it, the gut says blame Krauser. So nit pick about not getting a shot off to end the half and then blame Krauser for the fact that the team seemed to not make a steady effort.

Hack job.

The good news. Pitt is unlikely to face an opponent in the NCAA Tournament that is that extreme in hoisting the 3s. Pitt did not have a 10 minute stretch where they looked like a JV team, as they have through most of the Big East games. The Big 3 combined for 55 points, 19 rebounds and 18 assists. The team shot 50% for the game, and in the second half shot an efficient 57%.

The bad news. With the exception of the Providence game, Pitt has shown a nasty trait of playing up or down to the level of competition in the Big East this year. The bench only contributed 4 points on 2-10 shooting and 0-3 at the free throw line. Pitt let itself be out rebounded and out shot in the second half. Pitt didn’t stay attentive on defense, letting the shooters get free more often as the game wore on.

Is this the crisis sort of loss that St. John’s was? No. This was a home game for WVU, a rivalry game, a sellout. A career game for one player. Weird stuff happens. It doesn’t excuse the loss, though. Pitt had the game under control, but simply gave WVU too many extra chances. It doesn’t matter how much better the team’s shooting percentage was than WVU when you allow them to take 11 more shots in the first 40 minutes. WVU may have taken 40 3s, but on its 25 other shots, they made 13 (52%). That’s a problem.

Not having Ramon was not the problem on offense, but it was definitely a problem on defense. Ramon is a better defender than Graves, and Graves seemed to get tired playing more minutes than he has in the last 2-3 weeks. I am wondering how the beat writers for Pitt managed not to find out about Ramon’s strained shoulder. He suffered the injury on Tuesday, and didn’t practice on Thursday or Friday. Even if he was expected to play, you would have thought they might have mentioned that little tidbit.