With 12 minutes left, Florida State at home is beating Florida 53-40. Yes, a 13 point lead.
Top 5 teams on the road are not guaranteed wins. I’m just saying.
Cool!!! Horford fouled an FSU player. GAME OVER!!!
That is sure going to help our RPI.
Pitt relaxed a bit too early this afternoon, but other than that it was a fine performance. Auburn lost to us by 30 points last year, they were looking forward to this game as soon as the season began and came out pumped up. Pitt made a concerted effort to slow the game down in the second half and did so. It was a very nice win over a talented and athletic Auburn team that will win a few big games this year.
But… we did have a plethora of turnovers and shot poorly from the charity stripe.
Both of those aspects of the game are within our control. More importantly, they’re fundamentals that should be strong points for an experienced team like Pitt.
Mastering the fundamentals is the great equalizer. We shouldn’t be surprised by this after getting beat by Marquette, Kent State, Pacific and Bradley in the NCAAs. All were solid basketball teams seeded lower than Pitt. But they did the little things very well and it paid off.
We’re a veteran team. We should be doing these things very well. We didn’t today and it almost cost us.
Hopefully this serves as a wake-up call.
But, like I said, a win is a win 😉
Anybody else (besides the majority of coaches and players) want to see a playoff? You rarely ever hear anybody complaining about who’s in the NCAA basketball championship game. That’s because it’s decided on the court. Please let there be an NCAA football playoff in my lifetime.
Plus, even though the system is crap, college football probably loves the BCS because it creates so much buzz and controversy and gets all this attention when there is a conflict over who should play in the title game.
Go Pitt Bball!!
What does this have to do with anything? Who knows.
Anyway, here’s a Ken Pomeroy article from way back in August predicting that Pitt would have a bunch of guard problems early in the season:
link to kenpom.com
Anyway, after last night he has Pitt ranked 25th using his ratings and 5th using RPI’s. Pitt 25th and Maryland, losing last night to ND at home, 8th?
Maybe, just maybe, Ken should get out the slide rule and sharpen up his algorithms.
Dave talked about fundamentals, and at times, you see them with this team. Sharp passing, great D, making FTs, working the offense and getting good shots. And then, like that, poof, it’s gone for 5 minutes. Of course, every team has bad spots in games. It’s inevitable and part of the game. It’s just the consistency with which it happened last year and now has happened a few times this year.
Hopefully these last two games are learning experiences that Dixon can put to very good use. And hopefully he can get Young on track. He gave them big sparks at time last year, and I’d love to start seeing it again. That said, it’s great to see Graves and Benjamin playing with such confidence. It really is amazing how deep this team is.
