Comment and discuss before, during and after the game.

HALFTIME UPDATE: Good grief, Douby nails a prayer 3 to beat the shot clock and Pitt is down 38-37.

Douby is a monster scorer. Ramon and Pitt were doing all they can to stop him, but his range is impressive. Gray’s foul troubles are not a good thing. It is going to cost Pitt soon.

FINAL UPDATE: Pitt wins 76-68.

Well that was a painful final 2-3 minutes or so to endure. As the telecast pointed out, Pitt was the first team to win 4 straight at the RAC since before Rutgers joined the Big East — UMass in the 90s.

Kendall had the best all-around game for the team. Ramon was keeping Douby harried for the game — and the kid still got 27. Once more the great thing, was that no one player truly carried the team on his back. Contributions all-around meant that one or even two players could be shutdown/limited and others filled the gap.

All hail Hydra!

You can find Part1 of the Responses from Glenn Wohl of “RAC ‘Em Up” here. My responses to his questions are here and here.

What is your long-term view on the Big Big East? Do you see it lasting beyond the current arrangement in 2010?

I know there is a prevailing opinion that the basketball-only schools (Nova, Seton Hall, St. John’s, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence and DePaul) will be forced out. Notre Dame too, unless there FB joins the BE, which it won’t. I don’t see it that way. The simple answer – money. In a down year this conference probably send 7 teams to the NCAA Tourney, which is a good amount of money brought back to the conference. Villanova has reemerged as a national power, and St. John’s and Georgetown are historical powers also on the way up – especially Georgetown. I don’t think the conference will change at all unless the FB side has the opportuntiy to get better (Notre Dame). I think the BE powers are too egotisitical to downsize after bragging about the supersized version.

How would you describe the style of play for Rutgers? Their tempo/pace. Are they a halfcourt, driving team, post-up, perimeter shooting? On defense, are they playing press, zone, man a majority of the time?

On offense, Rutgers is a half-court, perimeter-based team. There are few instances of set plays for the front court. There is no post-up threat. When RU gets a lead, they often play a prevent offense – run the clock, give the ball to Douby, and let him shoot/create. On defense, they play man, press occasionally. The overall and perimeter defense has improved greatly since last year.

You alluded to having more than one player step up, in addition to Douby and Webb. What do you see as the “keys” to winning?

Assuming Webb does his usual job of controlling Krauser, RU needs to prevent someone else from stepping up, a la Ramon last year. Byron Joynes has to stay out of foul trouble, since he is probably the only defender capable of playing Gray. Beyond Douby’s 20, two other players need to reach double figures. RU needs to come out strong in each half, since that gets the crowd going early.

Thanks to Glenn for doing the cultural exchange.

What Rick Pitino says, becomes the rule for lazy sportswriters.

It’s impossible to prove. But there might be more contact in Big East basketball than Big East football. That supposition is based on our only up-close glimpse of Big East football, in which Rutgers watched Arizona State put up 45 points in the Insight Bowl on Dec. 27 at Chase Field.

The nation’s largest major conference – it has 16 hoops-playing members – is harking back to the days when every night seemed like a brawl. Nine of the top 60 teams in scoring defense are from the Big East.

Just ask Louisville coach Rick Pitino, whose team was outmuscled by unbeaten Pittsburgh 61-57 on Sunday.

Not that he’s bothered watching anything in the Big East. He just saw a quote from Rick Pitino and assumed it for all. Fine journalism in action.

Dick Vitale thinks Aaron Gray is the most improved player in college basketball (hat tip Joe). Far be it from me to take anything away from Pitt pub and positive stuff, but I’m not buying. Gray just didn’t play last season because Chris Taft was ahead of him in talent and what he had done. It’s not like he beat Taft out for the starting role. This is not to rip Gray, but I would consider most improved to be a player who clearly raised and improved his game. Not someone who has blossomed once in the role. Gray showed improvement in his brief spells last year. It just doesn’t work for me.

A Syracuse site ranks the toughest BE schedule (surprise, Syracuse has the hardest) for the 10 best teams. This is what he said about Pitt:

The Panthers play 10 games against the best the BE has to offer. They play Notre Dame, Syracuse, and Cincinnati at home; Louisville, Connecticut, and Georgetown on the road; and have home-and-home series against West Virginia and Marquette. Oddly, they don’t play in-state rival Villanova at all. Something I’m sure the Wildcats’ players are happy about, not having to be pulled, grabbed, scratched, clawed, kneed, and elbowed for 40 minutes. Pitt’s recent win over Wisconsin shows they will be a force in the Big East again this year.

The Big East Basketball Blog has a good preview of tonight’s game and predicts a Pitt win.

As Pitt gets on the national radar and tonight’s and Saturday’s games will be in the NY/NJ area, longtime NY Daily News Columnist Dick Weiss does a piece on Pitt.

There were also questions about whether Dixon could get a relatively inexperienced team with only two seniors to play cohesively if Carl Krauser continued to dominate the ball at the point. But the Panthers have forced us to take notice. They’re 14-0 and ranked ninth in the AP poll after defeating a ranked Wisconsin team at home and winning their first three league games. This is Pitt Week in the metropolitan area. The Panthers play Rutgers at the sold-out RAC tonight, then play St.John’s Saturday at noon at the Garden.

“I thought our league would be good, but it’s even better than I thought,” Dixon said. “Rutgers is much better than the two teams I saw on ESPN Monday – Kansas and Missouri. There’s going to be an astounding number of teams that have a shot at the tournament.”

With the NY connections of the team, expect a few more stories from the NYC papers. Especially if Pitt wins tonight.

This is Rutgers Coach Gary Waters 5th season. Pitt is the only Big East (pre-bloating) team against whom he has yet to notch a win. Overall, Pitt has won 7 straight against Rutgers, the last loss coming in 2001 at the RAC.

While starting Guard Anthony Farmer, a Freshman and the second leading scorer, did not start against DePaul because of a sore wrist on his shooting hand, he did play 27 minutes. He is not expected to miss the Pitt, game, though, he may come off the bench. Farmer is also Rutgers’ leader in assists with around 3.7/game.

Rutgers is playing much better this year, despite losing Ricky Shields. The discussion of Rutgers has to begin and focus on Sophomore Quincy Douby.

Junior guard Quincy Douby has been the catalyst. A 6-foot-3 junior, Douby leads the Big East in scoring with 23.3 points per game. No other player in the conference is more a focal point of his offense than Douby, who takes 31 percent of the Scarlet Knights’ shots from the field.

Douby averages more than 16 shots per game and is shooting 46.6 percent from the field, a high percentage for a guard. The only other player in the league who comes close to Douby’s production is Randy Foye of Villanova, who takes 26.8 percent of his team’s shots. Foye takes 15.3 shots per game, shoots 45.5 percent from the field and averages 20.6 points per game.

“You’re not going to shut him down,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “He’s going to get shots. He’s going to take shots. He’s got range. We’ve done a good job on a lot of guards this year, keeping them below their averages. You can’t let him get going. He’s been very dangerous this year.”

How dominant has Douby been? Rutgers has played 16 games this season, and he has led the Scarlet Knights in scoring in 15 of those games. And he hasn’t just racked up his points against suspect competition.

Douby scored 21 points in a loss to Illinois, 27 in a victory against Temple and 28 in an overtime loss to Villanova, the only blemish on the Knights’ league record. The fewest points he has scored in a game this season is 18 against Maryland Eastern Shore, but he played only 27 minutes in that game because the game was a blowout.

Douby is also hitting around 38% from outside the arc. His Effective Field Goal Percentage is 55.3%. I think you can expect Krauser and Ramon to take turns working on him.

If Pitt doesn’t show some better perimeter defense, this could prove to be a bad night. Rutgers shoots.

As expected, Rutgers main defensive guy Marquis Webb will be dealing with Krauser.

Webb’s defensive assignment may change from game to game, but he usually doesn’t have to look at Rutgers’ scouting report to find out who he’s going to guard. All he has to do is look at the opposing team’s stat sheet and discover the name of the other team’s leading scorer.

One night Webb may be asked to defend an All-America guard like Temple’s Mardy Collins (11 points, 1-for-9 shooting), the next he may be assigned an NBA prospect like DePaul swingman Sammy Mejia (11 points, 3-for-9 shooting).

“Normally the guy you guard plays the same position, but Marquis can really guard almost anybody,” Waters said. “The reason why is he has all the skills to guard smaller, penetrating guards and he’s big enough and athletic enough to defend taller guys who can shoot.”
…
The matchup against Krauser represents a completely different challenge for Webb, who is four inches taller but not as quick. The scouting report on Krauser is that the 6-1, 200-pound senior has a good first step and is adept at beating his opponent off the dribble. He’ll draw defenders and either spot up for a 3-pointer (a career-high 42.2 percent this season) or find an open teammate for an assist (4.4). His midrange game is solid, but he loves driving to the basket and is a good finisher.

“(Krauser) is a guy I’ve been preparing for,” Webb said, “but whoever coach Waters puts me on I’ll do my best to contain him.”

Webb isn’t giving anything away, but it’s a safe bet he’ll watch plenty of last year’s game against Pittsburgh as he explores Krauser’s weaknesses. Pittsburgh beat Rutgers 66-63 in overtime, but Krauser finished with more turnovers (nine) than points (seven) in his worst performance of the season. Three of those turnovers were offensive fouls against Webb as Krauser was hounded all night, making just two of his six shots overall.

Webb, apparently, prepares for the games by breaking down game tape of the opponent he expects to go one-on-one against.

While Rutgers has improved, the team is still seeking to recapture the true home-court advantage that made the RAC one of the more fearsome places for visiting teams to play.

A win tonight also would signal the return of the RAC wrath. It’s been two years since a ranked team left Rutgers a loser, three years since the Scarlet Knights tagged four ranked teams losers. The fans had the floor shaking last week against Villanova. Junior sharpshooter Quincy Douby said the energy was what he remembered from two years ago — when Rutgers rode a 16-2 home record to the NIT title game — and Waters said, “We have to show we’re going to hold serve.”

Waters tried saying it is too early to start worrying about quality wins and possible postseason appeal, joking, “We have to crawl before we can walk.” And yet, Rutgers will have to get off its knees eventually. The Scarlet Knights have played Pitt tight recently, dropping an overtime decision last year and threatening to upend the then-No. 5 team up until the game’s final couple of minutes in 2003.

“We need to show people we are a good team, we can play against the best teams in the country and we can win,” Webb said. “We have to seize these opportunities.”

Playing teams tough is one thing, winning is the important thing.

Last year when Ramon was having his big game against Rutgers, one of the things that stuck in RU’s craw was the fact that he was nearly a Scarlet Knight. This time, it could be Aaron Gray.

Gray’s emergence as an impact player comes as no surprise to Rutgers coach Gary Waters, who still has trouble believing Gray didn’t wind up in Piscataway.

“I thought it was a done deal. I thought he was coming here,” Waters said. “I knew he was going to be a player.”

Gray said his last two schools were Rutgers and Pittsburgh, and says “it’s very possible I could be in a Rutgers uniform right now. It was that close.”

“I think he’s a presence,” Waters said.

In a piece ostensibly about the 3 Pitt freshmen, there is a good deal of talking about the toughness and way Pitt plays.

It is possible to classify this Pitt team among the toughest, if you judge the decision on Louisville coach Rick Pitino’s comments after Sunday’s loss to the Panthers when he made reference to playing football on a basketball court.

Pitt’s size and strength wore down Louisville in the second half, when the Panthers rallied from a seven-point deficit to take a six-point lead on a driving layup by Antonio Graves, another in Pitt’s impressive reserve-guard pool, with 3:19 remaining.

“It’s how we play in practice, so it’s how we’re going to play in the game,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “A strength of this team is our depth. We’ve said it from the start of the season. It’s a good rotation we have.”

Dixon further agreed with the assessment that teams that want to be successful in the Big East must play with an attitude.

“Any good team has got to have a chip on their shoulder,” he said. “Anybody playing in this league has to have that. You’ve got to go out and prove yourself every night. That’s a common thread in this league. The teams are so good.”

Rutgers actually plays a lot of guys. They have 8 guys averaging more than 10 minutes a game. One more at 9 minutes and another at 7.5. They will have the bodies to throw at Pitt.

There are always the game notes for Pitt and Rutgers (PDF). Last year, Pitt had to go to OT to pull out a 3-point win. That game was noted for Ronald Ramon’s hot shooting. Pitt had been coming off two bad losses at home — Georgetown and Bucknell — and was part of a bad stretch for Pitt. After the Rutgers game, they gave away a big lead and had to rally to beat Seton Hall. That was followed by the loss to St. John’s. There was just some bad craziness at that point last year.

Looking at the game in capsule view, summarizes something of the theme.

Rutgers has a decent record, but really needs some big time wins to play their way into the bracket picture. Pitt is unbeaten on the year and continues to play well against tough teams. This is not going to be an easy game for the Panthers to win though. Rutgers is very tough at home and nearly upset Villanova in their last home game. They also managed a big road win against De Paul in their last game. Rutgers will be playing with a purpose because they are trying to pick up a high quality conference win, which is something they really need.

Rutgers will be tough out.

In one of the best match-up evaluations, albeit biased to the Scarlet Knights, this one really does a very good job. To get to the Rutgers win, he harps — incessantly — on Pitt’s lack of road play. That the Louisville game was the only road game was a real test. It’s worth reading the piece, though, to acquaint yourself better with the Rutgers team and expected match-ups.