Carl Krauser effectively sums up the importance of this game.
“They need a win, we need a win – big, big game,” Pitt junior point guard Carl Krauser said. “It’s Big East basketball. It’s two teams looking to knock each other off. This is what it’s all about.”
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Krauser, a team leader, said he won’t tolerate any more lapses, that this is the time when contenders separate from pretenders.“Games like this one is where you start to establish yourself and get ready for that stretch run,” said Krauser, who led the 18th-ranked Panthers to a 68-66 victory over Notre Dame at Petersen Events Center two days ago. “It’s going to be a hostile crowd and they’re going to want to get us back for beating them (76-69 on Jan. 29 at Petersen Events Center). We can’t let up. We have goals set for ourselves.”
A big question will be how does Chris Taft play this game? The players and coaches seem to be doing their best to let him know they are on his side, and they need him.
Taft has been up-and-down this season (25 points, 12 rebounds vs. Providence; eight points and five boards vs. Syracuse, which plays Pitt again tonight). Junior point guard Carl Krauser took Taft aside after the game. “I just told him we’re going to need him and we know he’s going to help us,” Krauser said. “Chris is a great player and a great guy. He’s not going to be bothered by this. He’ll come back against Syracuse and give us his best game. We know that.”
Even if Taft isn’t scoring, he needs to be strong on the boards and help limit the inside Syracuse offense to only Warrick — I readily concede you can’t necessarily stop Warrick, you can only hope to contain him.
If Warrick is the only option inside, then that creates pressure on Syracuse’s perimeter players. A McNamara-Krauser rematch should be epic. McNamara will be playing with a lot of pride and looking to prove that it wasn’t Krauser’s defense that shut him down for most of the second half in the last game. Pitt’s best chance to win, is to make Syracuse a 2-man team once more. You have to expect the 2 best players to score the most, but when they become the only scorers the pressure gets ratcheted up and favors Pitt.
Interesting to see how hard it is get road wins in the Big East. I mean, over the last 4 and a half years, the best road record in the Big East is BC with a 24-14 mark. UConn, the defending national champs, are 18-18. That’s something. It also makes holding serve at your home court even that much more important.
For Syracuse, this game is a bit about revenge from the end of January. I would think it would be more about redemption for blowing a big early lead, but no.
“We want to go out there and get some revenge,” Warrick said of Pitt in the aftermath of his career-high 32-point game at Villanova. “We really felt we should have won that game. We definitely want to go out there and get some revenge Monday.”
‘Cuse is coming in playing a lot better than they were when Pitt played them a couple weeks ago.
This scouting report on Pitt is interesting.
“Levon Kendall is playing well for them. He’s pretty good. When they’ve worked the best, he’s playing well. They play a lot bigger this year because Kendall is a 6-9 ‘three’ man. With this big lineup, it makes them tough on the boards, both offensively and defensively.
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“The one thing with (Carl) Krauser is that he’s the player who can score and takes most of the shots. He’ll make eight bad passes and turnovers, but he’s also going to make eight other great passes. He’s important, not only from the scoring aspect, but he makes them go.”
RS at Syracuse Hoops isn’t making any real predictions for this game, except that Syracuse won’t blow another 17 point lead.
