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February 13, 2007

Recovery Day

Filed under: Basketball,Big East,Conference,Opponent(s) — Chas @ 10:44 am

Okay, everyone getting a little perspective and breathing just a touch easier. It’s rough, I know. Worst loss ever at the Pete. The worst home loss in 6 years.

“I didn’t recognize that team to start,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “It’s not a good feeling right now.”

“It was just a bad day,” senior center Aaron Gray said. “It’s going to happen sometimes. The true test will be how we respond.”

“There were multiple reasons we lost this game,” Gray said. “If we play like that, we will lose every game.”

I still can’t believe how abysmal Pitt was in just about every facet, and every individual. Well, Tyrell Biggs went 4-4 from the free throw line for about the only positive surprise.

The Pitt players were frustrated, angry and embarrassed — as you would expect. Aaron Gray was the only player who was willing to talk with the media after the game. You can blame your favorite player to hate or the coach or whatever. In this game, it was the ultimate team loss. A complete team effort.
On the bright side, as bad as the game was, it still only counted as one loss.

The coaching staff will have a little more hard evidence to employ as a teaching tool, particularly as it relates to handling full-court pressure and attacking a zone.

Practices will likely become a little more spirited than they might have been, especially considering the Panthers had been less than themselves in getting out-rebounded by eight but still beating Providence, 74-68, on Saturday.

And the players’ pride has clearly been challenged now that a second conference game has been surrendered at home.

Ron Cook  who had been writing laudatory piece after laudatory piece for the last couple of weeks is now concerned.

But Pitt couldn’t stop Louisville’s offense.

That probably was most depressing.

A program known for its tough man-to-man defense was embarrassed by the more athletic Cardinals.

Again, it was a quickness issue.

If you really want something to worry about Pitt at tournament time, worry about that speed thing.

It wasn’t just Gray, who has been known to struggle with mobile big men. Louisville’s David Padgett and Derrick Caracter ate him up inside, but Gray was hardly the only Pitt player who was a step slow. Caracter blew by Levon Kendall for a layup. Terrence Williams flew past Levance Fields and Keith Benjamin on separate occasions. Brandon Jenkins left Fields and Antonio Graves in the dust on his way to an uncontested layups.

We’ve all known that Pitt is not a team with great quickness. I hardly think that’s a revelation.
There are ways to address this, which Pitt had done in terms of moving the ball, staying in position on defense and just not getting rattled. Even in the Marquette game — which Louisville cited as the template — Pitt adjusted to it and made better decisions and execution. There was none of that last night. They were flustered, and then frustrated. They never got settled. Disjointed doesn’t even begin to describe it.
On the flip side, you have to give credit to Louisville. As I wrote later, they finally got everything together in one game. They played their finest game in two years.

“When the ball goes inside, they’re very smart in finding their shooters,” Pitino said. “Once it went inside, we weren’t going to let them go outside to the shooters.

“We played zone and man, and when the ball went inside the foul line, we were just going to match up. We also used some 3-2 zone that we haven’t played much this year.”

The end of the game featured something Louisville fans hadn’t seen in a couple of years: players smiling and laughing while taking down a ranked team. That might have been the signature moment of this night.

“That’s the best win we’ve had in a couple of years,” Padgett said. “We knew coming in that if we won this game and did well our last four games, it would be pretty hard to overlook us (for the NCAA Tournament). This is the kind of win that can turn our season around.”

It was the big win they needed to get themselves solidly in the discussion for an NCAA Tournament bid.

Now, Pitt needs to respond the rest of the way.





If Pitt has another game like this I will be very concerned. I don’t think its going to happen though.

Comment by dan 02.13.07 @ 11:01 am

wow are we ever OVER-RATED!!!

what did pitino expose and show other teams????

TROUBLE AHEAD!!!!

Comment by paulhackett 02.13.07 @ 11:39 am

we are 22-4 and have beat some good teams. We played the worst game of the year against a team who had their post-season lives on the line. Louisville would have beat most teams last night

Comment by dan 02.13.07 @ 12:01 pm

You witnessed last night why we will always be a good team, and not a great team. As long as we continue to recruit players that just fit our system well, we will lose games to teams with more athletic kids. Tell me the last team that won a National Championship team that you could say they did not have athletes and great players, but worked a great system? Our sysyem will win us 20 games a year, but when is that not enough? Tournament teams have athletes, and good players. Over the course of a year, there is a lot of footage for teams to figure your “system” out. Hence Pitino and Louisville.

Comment by J. Dizzy 02.13.07 @ 12:15 pm

Louisville could not have forced 16 first half turnovers. I think Pitt had to be playing awful basketball. I am not going to say that a loss such as this isn’t a big deal, but it is only one loss and it is February 13th. Pitt has plenty of games left and hopefully will get another shot at Louisville in the Big East tournament. I was worried about this game after Pitt absolutely embarrassed the same Louisville team last year in the Big East tournament. That is another reason not to get too worried. They had the same players and we kicked their ass with basically the same team. Don’t jump off the bandwagon just yet.

Comment by Omar 02.13.07 @ 12:29 pm

this will be all forgotten on saturday afternoon……..we WILL need to win either @gtown or @marquette though, or we can kiss a 2-3 seed in the tourney goodbye…….

Comment by Schoe 02.13.07 @ 1:12 pm

I don’t want to be too down about this game but it does seem that whenever Pitt has a chance to go to the next level…they seem to come out flat. Every time in the last 2-3 seasons they are within reach of the top 5 they go out and lose.

I do think we did over-estimate the ability of this team though. I am not saying that we aren’t a good team, but as soon as we face and a team more athletic than us in the Tourney we will be out.

I don’t think this loss is the only indicator for those who are in the negative on Pitt. I think the pattern is emerging that if you can out hustle this team you can beat it.

If we are lucky we won’t face that type of team until we are in the sweet 16 during tourney…

That said I am not in the negative just understanding where the negative feelings are coming from. I think there is a strange apprehension to some that seems like Deja vu…

Comment by DaveD 02.13.07 @ 1:28 pm

Looking at the stats, I think this was just a complete lack of preparation. Pitt just wasn’t ready to play. Louisville wanted and needed this game more than Pitt and it showed. I seriously doubt we will see another effort like this the rest of the season. Pitt has handled more athletic teams than Louisville (UCONN, Villanova, and FSU) so I don’t think the assumption that we can’t handle the press is accurate. I just don’t think the players were ready. Louisville got going on offense and that gave them energy on defense and Pitt didn’t respond. We played two intense games and obviously weren’t ready for a third. Welcome to being the big dog in the conference. Can’t take nights off or you get embarrassed.

Comment by Omar 02.13.07 @ 1:56 pm

While I agree with the assumption that the players were not ready, I believe it goes deeper than that. I truly believe that at times they think too highly of themselves. That explains the multitude of times this year that they come out stinking.

Comment by Kenny 02.13.07 @ 4:17 pm

You had to be there in person to understand the athletic delta between the two teams last night. The quickness difference and the size difference were scary. Compare Terence Williams with Mike Cook and you get a sense of what I’m talking about. Pitino brought some thoroughbreds to town. (The amazing thing is that Pitino hasn’t been able to get that team to play good offense until last night.)

Pitt didn’t take a night off. They got whupped.

It had nothing to do with preparation. By the time you get to D1 ball, every player knows that you beat a press by reversing the ball and getting it into the middle. No rocket science there. You could prep for the press all week and it wouldn’t make Fields or Ramon any faster or make Mike Cook a ballhandler. They were physically overmatched and that’s going to happen a few times a year when Pitt’s system can’t overcome the fact that they don’t have any studs playing for them. Hoping that will start to change with the influx of new recruits.

Comment by andre aldridge 02.13.07 @ 4:29 pm

Sorry Andre, but you didnt need to be there in person. This one was a bit obvious

and yes I was at the game

Comment by Jamie H 02.13.07 @ 6:56 pm

J. Dizzy

You asked: “Tell me the last team that won a National Championship …that you could say they did not have athletes and great players, but worked a great system?”

The answer: National Championship… 1985. Villanova def. Georgetown. 66-64 and does so with inferior athletes/ players. Most notably, Georgetown featured—among other “super-stars”—Patrick Ewing…

… who led the Hoyas into the National Collegiate Athletic Association championship game three times in four years. The first player selected in the 1985 college draft… the seven-foot-tall, 240-pound former center for the New York Knicks was one of the most dominating players in the National Basketball Association …ever.

In this instance, the more “talented” team lost to Cinderella & Co. The ’85 Wildcat team did not graduate any one (1) player capable to sustain his career at “the next level.”

Comment by Neil 02.13.07 @ 7:28 pm

If I remember correctly, Pinkley, and the two brothers McClain were great athletes and carried that team to the victory.

Pinkley was a mosnster inside, he scored, he defended and he was 6’9″ compared to Ewing’s 7′. The McClain’s made big shot after big shot and got steals.

All of this against the great Georgetown, and their great athletes.

While the lesser team won, they would not have won without the three previously mentioned athletes. One’s who I might add were definately gifted both physically and basketball skilled wise. Although they did not make it in the NBA, they had the skill to succeed against the best in college.

Comment by Kenny 02.14.07 @ 9:23 am

Thanks for proving my point in going back 22 years. Like I said, “in this day and age of College Basketball.” If there has not been one in 22 years, we are in trouble.

Comment by J. Dizzy 02.14.07 @ 11:59 am

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