You know, this was only the second game all season that Pitt’s effective field goal percentage (eFG%) was below 50%. Ken Pomeroy has has added a very useful new feature to his already invaluable site. It’s called the Game Plan. Not only does it chart key tempo-free stats from each game for easy comparison, it looks for correlations to certain stats and how a team does in a game. Something of an explanation about the Game Plan is here. Very intriguing.

It’s kind of funny to read the DePaul players such as Sammy Mejia complain that DePaul didn’t play their own pace. That they let Pitt dictate the tempo.

“We were terrible offensively,” DePaul guard Sammy Mejia said. “We weren’t moving the ball the way we usually do. We played to their pace. We just weren’t the same team we have been in the last month.”

The pace of the game was not particularly fast. Only about 62 possessions/40 minutes for each team. The funny thing about Mejia’s comments is that DePaul plays at nearly the same pace as Pitt. DePaul’s pace is 64.1 (291th) and Pitt’s is 63.7 (298th). It’s not like their pace was significantly slower.

What did happen is that Pitt’s defense kept them from running the offense the way they wanted.