No need to worry about Mike Gansey. No worries about Joe Herber. None about J.D. Collins either. No need to worry about Pittsnoggle; he calls the Pete his new home.
Above: Pittsnoggle in all of his West Virginian (and now Pittburgh Xplosion [current record of 2-26. Woo!]) glory. Photo courtesy of myself.
And yet, after graduating all of their key players last year as well as their twin sisters/girlfriends, the Mountaineers can still beat us. The fashion they’ll try to do it with will be the same too.
West Virginia coach John Beilein still has his team shooting 3-pointers at a breakneck pace, and his new-look Mountaineers are one of the surprise teams in the Big East through the first half of the season.
“It’s funny,” Pitt junior Keith Benjamin said. “You see the exact same plays, but it’s not Pittsnogle out there making 3s. He used to kill us. Now, it’s someone else. They have more athletes, better jumpers and the same number of shooters.”
Their offense has kept pace when everyone believed it would drop off, but Pitt’s defense is very good as always. When push comes to shove, which team will get knocked off their normal scheme.
The defense is better than last year while using the same odd zone as always.
They are yielding five fewer points per contest and are among the top scoring defenses in the Big East (58.2 points per game).
Dixon is going to be a nice guy to everyone, even our Morgantown “buddies”.
“They’re new kind of like Aaron [Gray] and Levon [Kendall],” Dixon said. “They were in the system and they were good players. They were just waiting their turn. I think that’s the case with these guys. They’re comfortable with the system and are putting up the numbers. It’s a similar situation. It’s not surprising that they’re doing a good job.”
I’m not ready to say anyone on the Mountaineers can be compared to Gray, or at least yet. They could make some sort of run in the Big East or NCAA tournament and that would be enough to open my eyes a little more towards them. Of course, beating us tomorrow would also make me look a little deeper at who they have down there.
