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November 5, 2006

Turn that frown upside down…

Filed under: Basketball,Practice — Keith W. @ 12:07 am

…because its basketball time!

Keith here, making a random cameo appearance.

Pitt defeated California (Pa.) tonight, 80-65. The box score is only available in the Game Tracker right now, but it should be showing up on Pitt’s page anytime.

I didn’t get to watch the game, but the box score has some good and bad. It’s been a good-bad sort of day in Pitt sports I suppose – but I am not going to touch that. Here’s my take on the basketball:

Good: Levon Kendall; he shot 8-for-11 from the field and 2-3 from downtown. If he can regain the shooting touch he displayed two years ago, he could become one of the premier players (right now he is a premier role player) in the Big East – in a Dirk Nowitzki sort of way.

Bad: Mike Cook; I will not bash the guy; I will bash the unfair expectations Pitt fans seem to have for him. 0-5 from the field, 0-2 from three, 1 assist, 1 rebound, 2 fouls. I am not saying he wont turn out to be good (or great) but just be careful with him. Be nice.

Good: Antonio’s confidence; if a box-score line could ever indicate a player’s confidence level, than Graves’ does. He’s taking shots (4-9 from the field), taking three pointers (2-5), and – and this has never been a huge part of his game – dishing boat loads of assists (8). That’s my biggest surprise of the game.

Good: Aaron Gray’s free throws; the big guy was 5-5 from the line and didn’t turn the ball over once while scoring 23 points.

Bad: Little contribution from Benjamin or Young (coming back from injury).

Question: In what capacity is Fields going to be used this season? I didn’t watch the game so I couldn’t see what he was doing, but only two assists for everyone’s PG of the future isn’t good.

Good: R Squared; Ramon had 7 assists and zero turnovers. He also shot 2-4 from downtown. I just want to see him shoot more!

It’s only one exhibition game and it was against sub-par competition by Pitt’s standards, therefore none of this is an end-all-tell-all, just a jumping off point. With more good than bad maybe it will coax a few of you football fans (hello, football fans, anyone, anyone…. *crickets chirping*) away from the ledge.





As a Cal grad I can’t tell you how proud I was of the Vulcans versus Maryland. They also played Pitt closer than I expect.

I am still in shock over Pitt football game. Pitt could only make things happen in a two minute drill. This speaks to a general lack of intensity that Pitt displayed today, The secondary did not play well. The defense line was better, and Milicki was outstanding. The o-line showed the impact injury Most distrubing was that every time Pitt got something going they did somethiing dump to kill the momentum. Conn game will be a real challenge now.

Comment by Ron 11.05.06 @ 12:39 am

As a Cal grad I can’t tell you how proud I was of the Vulcans versus Maryland. They also played Pitt closer than I expect.

I am still in shock over Pitt football game. Pitt could only make things happen in a two minute drill. This speaks to a general lack of intensity that Pitt displayed today, The secondary did not play well. The defense line was better, and Milicki was outstanding. The o-line showed the impact injury has had. Most distrubing was that every time Pitt got something going they did somethiing dump to kill the momentum. Conn game will be a real challenge now.

Comment by Ron 11.05.06 @ 12:45 am

Give Cal some credit. They killed Maryland on D and obviously had some early impact on Pitt. But the foul count seemed crazy. Cal was in the double bonus extremely early.

About the OLine – we have two guys with big time talent on it. One is a true freshman. McGlynn has always stunk and Villani, well, he’s a Bucknell transfer. Thomas needs work on pass blocking, but he’s going to be a good one. CJ Davis at center next year is a HUGE upgrade. But it will happen.

Comment by RWill 11.05.06 @ 12:58 am

I was at the game tonight…and I feel like everything mentioned was a fair asessment for the game. Levance looks like he’s struggling out there. He don’t have that swagger that he developed last year and was having trouble penetrating. He did take a few shots and nailed a few. Again, back to the age old Mike Cook debate. We obviously have him in there as a creater and a slasher, and tonight, every shot he took was a wide open three or deep two, a shot in which he was so open that he coudldn’t turn it down, though you knew he wanted to take it to the hoop. This won’t happen as the competition gets better becuase teams will play closer up on him and he’ll be able to pump fake and drive. To his credit, the shots he took were pretty much shots he could not pass up and he’s just not that great of a shooter. He was still very unselfish and plays like he’s going to be a very good important and helpful part of our team. Aaron looked dominant at times, and Levon really look good as well. In addition, Tyrell was playing with a bounce that clearly was not there last year. All in all, a good warmup for us, a lot of hustling, which is fantastic for a preseason tune-up, and the only reason the game was close was poor mid-range shooting and free-throw shootings, things that usually get better as the season goes along anyway.

Comment by Yi 11.05.06 @ 3:13 am

I agree with the post above hoping to see Ramon take more shots. This team craves that.

Comment by geeman2001 11.06.06 @ 10:27 pm

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