If you are feeling a certain deja vu reading Ron Cook’s column on how Pitt is still a year away, well that’s because his fellow columnist Bob Smizik wrote the same column back at the end of January.
I still have the same feeling on the subject. You never know.
Yes, on paper, the team would appear to be better, deeper and more seasoned with Gray, Graves and Kendall as seniors, Ramon and Benjamin as juniors, and of course Young, Fields, and Biggs having another year to learn. Cook even forgot about Mike Cook, the athletic guard/forward who is sitting out the year after transferring from East Carolina.
Last season was supposed to be Pitt’s big year and the team imploded late in the season. Consider, too, that Pitt has managed to avoid a key player suffering a serious season-long injury problem for years. Villanova, by contrast, has yet to get through a season without major injury issues to their incredibly talented players.
Imagine losing Gray or Young or Fields for the season. Young has been an impact all season, and should be bigger next year. No question. But what happens if he gets a knee injury or something. You just don’t know, and there is nothing dumber than anticipating next season when there is hopefully plenty more to do this season.
Coach Dixon, naturally, wants the team focusing on the game at hand. Not looking to next year or even to Sunday. The team, Kent State, was the best and most consistent team in the MAC this year. Everyone had Ohio University tabbed to win the MAC, but they proved wildly inconsistent. KSU, on the other hand, dominated the conference (15-3) and won their tournament.
Kent State was second in the Mid-American Conference in scoring (72.5 points per game) and a solid fifth in scoring defense (65.5 ppg). The Golden Flashes led the MAC in rebounding margin and held opponents to 33-percent shooting from behind the 3-point arc.
Like Pitt, Christian utilizes a deep bench and plays 10 players. He has seven players averaging 6.5 points or more per game. The leading scorer is senior guard Jay Youngblood, who averages 14.7 per game. But in the past six games, Kent State has had a different leading scorer five times.
“It’s been a strength of ours all year,” Christian said. “We play nine or 10 guys. We have different guys step up. We don’t rely on one or two guys. We utilize our bench as much as we can.”
The only common foes between the two are Rutgers and Syracuse. KSU lost to Rutgers by 3 on a neutral court, and of course, Pitt beat RU at the RAC. Kent lost by 12 to the ‘Cuse at the Carrier Dome and Pitt split with the Orange.
Kent’s only wins against top-100 RPI teams were Ohio (99) (twice), Miami (OH) (84), Akron (70) and Butler (82) (non-con). Kent has won 9 of its last 10 games.
Kent’s head coach, Jim Christian, now finds himself becoming a hotter commodity, after his continuing the success at Kent after Stan Heath left for Arkansas. This, despite, being unemployed as a coach for a couple years, following being purged from Pitt with Ralph Willard in 1999.
If you believe in trends, then the past 3 times Pitt has gotten to the BET Championship game, Pitt made the Sweet 16. Then, I guess, you should also believe that UConn isn’t going to win the NCAA since the last two times they won it, they also won the BET. Or is it just when the trend is convenient or only for Pitt?
