Let’s get some game media run-down finished.
Yesterday, Graves got a brief little piece. Today he gets a sizable puff piece. Coach Dixon, as is his habit, claims that Graves is doing nothing different than usual. Dixon doesn’t even like to suggest a player is picking things up because that would imply he had been down before.
“He’s been pretty good for a while. Nothing is really different. He’s been good all along. He’s been a good shooter for us.”
Dixon maintains Graves does not have to score at his recent pace to help Pitt win games. While Graves has been a lightning rod for criticism on the Internet message boards all season, Dixon believes he has been a consistent performer since November.
The only reason for the statistics spike, Dixon said, is a change in the rotation in which Graves and Fields have usurped playing time from some other players because of their improved play in practice and games.
“Oftentimes we look too much into scoring and the numbers,” Dixon said.
“I think he’s played just as well in games where his scoring hasn’t been there. Everyone is saying he’s great because he made three more shots than he made in the previous game. He’s been pretty good all the way through. He’s been a good defender. He can penetrate.
“As coaches, you have to look at what he’s doing consistently and not base it on making one or two more shots than he did before. I know it looks better, but he’s been good for us in a lot of ways. The same people who are saying he’s great now are the same ones saying he shouldn’t have been playing in the first place.”
Kent’s Nate Gerwig, on the heels of a couple stories about him in Pittsburgh, gets a story in the Akron paper. The story also focuses on the injuries and continually coming back from them.
Kent State players were excited because they got new sneakers.
Kent State’s players were given a gift Tuesday afternoon for winning the Mid-American Conference Tournament: a new pair of Nike Air Zoom Huarache 64 basketball sneakers. The shoes are black with a touch of black metallic silver.
“They make you feel stealthy,” sophomore forward Mike Scott said after trying out his size 14 sneakers at practice.
“It makes me feel like I can jump out of the gym.”
Senior guard DeAndre Haynes liked the shoes, too.
“We’re all going out to get (matching) black socks,”Haynes said.
To be fair, these sneakers aren’t getting released to the general public until March 26, so they are getting brand new gear.
Pitt, except for Benjamin, is already in Michigan.
“Everybody’s ready. We had some hard practices,” said senior guard Carl Krauser, the team’s leading scorer at 15.0 points per game.
Krauser, the 10th-leading all-time scorer at Pitt, has struggled with his shooting during the last half of the season, but he’s looking forward to giving the Panthers a spark in the NCAA Tournament.
“I’ve got six games left,” he said, with a wink. “It’s going to be a lot of fun. We’ll try to make it the most memorable six games we’ve played at Pitt and try to win a national championship.”
Joe Starkey says that Aaron Gray needs to come up (sorry about this) big.
Obvious point: In order to make a serious run at the national title, you better have at least one Surf-and-Turfer (that’s Vitale-speak for superstar).
Where does this leave Pitt? Well, as a fifth seed, the Panthers are a longshot under any circumstance, and recent history suggests they are more likely to encounter a star player (Dwyane Wade, Tony Allen) at tournament time than produce one.
In the past 20 years, Pitt has delivered only four first-round picks – none since Vonteego Cummings in 1999 – and one lottery pick (Charles Smith, taken third overall in 1988).
The Panthers of recent vintage have been all about team, rather than relying heavily on a superstar or two. That’s a sound concept. It has worked nicely in helping to vault the program to national prominence.
But it’s not conducive to contending for national championships.
This is where Aaron Gray comes in. He gives Pitt something almost every other team in the country lacks: a talented 7-footer (who happens to weigh 270 pounds).
Gray has been very good for most of the season. If he becomes great in this tournament — and that’s a big if — Pitt could make a lengthy run.
Of course the team is trying to stay focused on just the first game in front of them.
Pitt’s players have said that they refuse to look past opening-round opponent Kent State (25-8), which they play at 7:10 p.m. Friday in Auburn Hills, Mich. If the fifth-seeded Panthers (24-7) win, they likely will get No. 4 Kansas Sunday in a second-round matchup. The Jayhawks play Bradley on Friday.
“I think we’re way ahead of where we were last year,” junior center Aaron Gray said. “We’re playing more like a team, and we have a lot of confidence in each other. That’s made a big difference.
“Last year, we kind of overlooked Pacific because we were so worried about Washington. We just weren’t ready, but we learned from that experience. And we’re not going to do that this year.”
For Kent a Cleveland beat writer thinks that Kent has had success during the season with double teaming big men down in the post, but it remains to see how it will fair against Gray. He also thinks one of the freshmen guards needs to step up to help the team.
