If anyone thought we got down on Pitt after its recent slide. It’s nothing compared to how the ND players and coach were treating themselves. Warning: those who find high levels of self-pity and self-flagellation annoying might want to skip further down the post.
Senior Chris Thomas, definitely didn’t say anything remotely near earlier comments about how he feels they should have won. He admitted who the better team was, then started getting down on his own.
“They were big-time men today,” said Irish guard Chris Thomas. “We couldn’t match that. We just didn’t have any kind of fight at all.”
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“We need to approach the games in a better tone,” Thomas said. “Our body language needs to be more confident. If you look out there, we don’t play confident anymore.”
Even Mike Brey said who were the men — repeatedly.
“They’re men; they’re men; they’re men,” Irish coach Mike Brey said. “They’re a tough bunch, have been, especially when they go on the road.”
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From the moment it trailed, Pittsburgh was more physical, more determined and flat-out more aggressive. The Panthers made themselves mighty comfortable on the Joyce Center floor in a second half that saw the visitors shoot 66.7 percent.“You didn’t guard,” Brey said. “You didn’t meet them physically around the basket.”
Brey had more to say about his team.
“When we couldn’t get after their shots, when we could not stop them and get anything in transition and had to go in a halfcourt offense Â… then we struggled,” Irish coach Mike Brey said.
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“I never thought we were a great defensive team,” Brey said. “We’ve been a program that has to put points on the board.”
But wait, there is more from Brey.
“The men won that game — and they are men,” said Brey of the Panthers. “Pittsburgh is a very good basketball team and, quite frankly, theyÂ’re a lot tougher than us. Against a team like Pitt, you need to do it 40 minutes. You can’t just wait for a rebound to fall into your hands. We need to get ready for New York. This would have been a huge win, but we have a chance on Wednesday to add to the body of work.”
Senior Jordan Cornette seemed to be saying it was a team effort.
If Taft played like a man, the boyish Irish (17-10) felt the sting of his parental paddling.
Afterward, an angry Jordan Cornette called out his teammates after Pitt shredded their non-existent defense for 20-of-30 shooting in the second half.
“Our toughness was seriously challenged,” he snapped. “To be out-toughed like that was embarrassing. Right now we’re at a crossroads. We’ve got to sit down and figure things out.”
Jordan Cornette fouled out of the game at the 6:06 mark, when he was pushed around by Troutman inside, once more. On his fifth foul he couldn’t stop Troutman from scoring. I’m guessing he was standing in front of a mirror when he offered up that critique.
With this latest loss, people are really harshing on Chris Thomas.
“He played like a man,” said Chris Thomas, who may have to settle for NIT home games after a miserable effort in a disappointing regular-season finale. “He’s going to get drafted after this.”
Thomas will graduate as Notre Dame’s No. 3 all-time scorer, but has regressed from a projected first-round choice to a doubting Thomas in three years.
Coach Mike Brey, a tireless apologist, blamed Thomas’ 2-for-13 marksmanship on guard Chris Quinn’s ankle, which kept him from driving or cutting.
“Chris was pressing because No. 2 (Quinn) wasn’t there to take the heat off him,” said Brey after Notre Dame’s third loss in its last four games.
Well, if the ND players are going to question their own toughness, it isn’t surprising to have a columnist do so.
Unfortunate but alarmingly typical for this Notre Dame team, which in the last week has lost two home games by a total of 19 points and had its hands full with woeful Rutgers in between. This is not the way you want to end the season, if you’re looking to go Dancing. And it is certainly not the way you want to respond to a game like Saturday, with history in the house and Enberg just waiting for a chance to say “Oh, my!” one more time.
Maybe he did, come to think of it. But it surely wouldn’t have had the connotation it’s had so many times here before, when the stakes were high and the drama was red-lining and the Irish were rising up one more time to smote the mighty.
Here’s the ugly truth about this team, or at least a piece of it: Not only do the Irish tend to play small, they come up small, too, on too many occasions. This is not a particularly tough team right now, sad to say. It needs a grit transplant. It could also use a dependable go-to on the blocks, too, but maybe that’s all part of the same thing.
Yes, the Irish whipped Connecticut here, and they brought down unbeaten Boston College, but what have they done since? What do you see in this team, if you’re a member of the NCAA selection committee?
You see a two-point loss at Pittsburgh.
You see wins over Georgetown (8-7 in the Big East) and Providence (3-12).
You see a 14-point loss at UConn, and a 10-point loss to UCLA, and finally you see Saturday’s inexplicable heart failure — in which the Irish once again lived outside the arc, until such time as they died there.
When it was over the Irish locker room was decorated with vacant stares and empty shrugs, and Thomas talked vaguely about “body language” and approaching games “in a better tone.”
Not a good year for basketball in the State of Indiana, when the best team in the state is on the bubble (teams if you think IU is also on the bubble).Now, outside of Indiana, this game was about Chris Taft.
Yesterday, Taft was stellar, and knows what it could mean if he keeps it up.
“That guy,” junior point guard Carl Krauser said, pointing at 6-foot-10 sophomore center Chris Taft, “can be our championship horse. If he plays like he did today, we can ride him a long, long way.”
Krauser paused, briefly.
“Maybe all the way to a national title.”
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For at least a day, Taft showed why some are projecting him as an NBA lottery pick as early as this year. He also helped the Panthers lock up a first-round bye in the Big East Tournament and a fourth consecutive 20-win season.“That was the real Chris Taft,” freshman guard Ronald Ramon said.
Added Krauser: “When he’s playing like that, you feed him and feed him and feed him.”
The victory earned the 24th-ranked Panthers (20-7, 10-6 Big East) a No. 5 seed in the Big East tourney, where they’ll face four-seed Villanova (21-6, 11-5) at 2 p.m. on Thursday at Madison Square Garden.
“I told myself I have to be aggressive today, make sure we get that bye,” said Taft, who had just one point and was benched for the final 12 minutes of the last Notre Dame game, a 68-66 Pitt win three weeks ago in Pittsburgh. “I wanted to put the team on my shoulders in this game. There was no way I was only scoring one point again. The whole world knows I’m better than that.”
Taft said he wants the world to know that he can do what he did yesterday on a regular basis.
“I’d rather it come now, than have it never come at all,” said Taft, who’s had an up-and-down season. “This is the perfect time for it to come.”
Last week, Ron Cook used most of his Sunday column to blast Taft. Today, Cook pats himself on the back for inspiring Taft.
Maybe I should have called Pitt center Chris Taft soft in December.
Maybe Pitt would be undefeated and right there with No. 1 Illinois as a national championship contender.
Word out of the Pitt locker room yesterday after Taft’s phenomenal performance in an 85-77 win against Notre Dame was that Taft was inspired by a column in the Post-Gazette last Sunday. In it, I accused Taft of playing with little heart in a home loss to Connecticut the day before and criticized him for making teammates Chevon Troutman and Carl Krauser do the heavy lifting most of the season. I also might have mentioned how inexcusable it was for a player with potential to be an NBA draft lottery pick this summer to give his team so little.
Taft was handed the paper during Pitt’s flight to Boston that day by one of the coaches. After he read it, he was told by more than one member of the traveling party that the criticism was fair and legitimate.
Taft hasn’t been the same since.
No need to thank me, Pitt fans.
I’m glad I could help.
Actually, he mentioned “not liking the things written about him” in a brief post-game interview with Jay Bilas after Pitt crushed BC on Monday night.
And of course, with that win over ND in South Bend, Pitt didn’t just spoil Senior Day.
They celebrated 100 years of Notre Dame basketball yesterday with a halftime celebration, trotting out the legendary names of the Irish past. The Notre Dame Victory March could be heard throughout the raucous Joyce Center.But, by the end of the regular-season finale between Pitt and the Fighting Irish, the only thing that could be heard in the nearly silent arena were the “Let’s Go Pitt” chants from a tiny section.
Hey, the Domers should be happy this game wasn’t played at the Pete. I imagine by the end, they would have heard the chant “N-I-T!” ringing in their ears.
Now the preparation turns to the Big East Tournament. Pitt’s first opponent will be Villanova. The Wildcats’ head coach doesn’t seem particularly thrilled to face Pitt a second time.
The No. 19 Wildcats, who finished in fourth place in the conference to earn a first-round bye in the Big East tournament, will begin postseason play on Thursday with a quarterfinal game against No. 24 Pittsburgh (20-7) at Madison Square Garden.
Villanova defeated the visiting Panthers, 80-72, on Feb. 20 in their only face-off this season.
“This league is incredible,” Wildcats coach Jay Wright said while shaking his head. “You get in the 4-5 game, and you get Pittsburgh. …”
About the only good thing about this seeding match-up for fans is that it will likely be the last game of the day. No need to tape, miss it or skip work to see it.
Final thing, Joe Bendel makes his individual picks for honors in the Big East. Like me, he also goes with Hakim Warrick as BE player of the year.
UPDATE: Correction about the Pitt-Villanova game in the BET. Looks like it is on at 2pm on ESPN2.
