It’s almost unfair to pick on the articles in both papers about how Pitt’s flaws were exposed by the Louisville loss. How teams will study the tape and use it as a blueprint from here on out against Pitt. I mean, my first thought was, “Duh.”
Of course teams are going to look at the tapes and see stuff on there. Once again, though, few teams can do it like that. Generally speaking, the press is very effective at creating turnovers against a lot of teams. It’s not used by a lot of teams because it is also very difficult to execute well and consistently. Not to mention personnel issues. Not every team can play as deep as Louisville did — and space out the fouling.
It’s like asking Pitt to try and create more turnovers on defense faster. Pressing and going for the steals. It isn’t to the players’ and team’s strength. I was always a fan of the Richardson-Arkansas “40 minutes of hell” style of defense, but that was not nearly so effective when the wrong players were trying to play in it.
I’m not dismissing the articles out of hand. There is stuff in there that makes good points.
The Huskies will pay extra attention to the Louisville tape. They will notice how Louisville switched from a zone defense to a man-to-man whenever Pitt got the ball inside the foul line. The objective was to prevent Gray from passing to a perimeter shooter for a 3-point attempt.
It effectively neutralized Gray’s ability to find the open shooter, one of his strengths.
The strategy worked. Pitt, the Big East’s top 3-point shooting team, was a season-worst 3 of 21.
“When the ball goes inside, they are very smart finding their shooters,” Pitino said. “So, once it went inside, we weren’t going to let it go outside to a shooter.”
But the counter-point is that Pitt will be working on solving that issues. Starting with the next opponent, Washington, you are also talking about a team with players that size and style-wise aren’t anything like the Cardinals.
Still, there were some amusing things.
Pitt has proven in the past that it is more than capable of coming back from seven or nine points down. Once the deficit reaches double digits, however, the Panthers have a hard time getting back into games.
Louisville jumped on Pitt early and led, 13-2, before the game was five minutes old. The Cardinals led by as many as 19 in the first half and 20 in the second half, forcing Pitt into a catch-up mode, something with which the Panthers are neither familiar nor comfortable.
Does the term truism mean anything? It generally doesn’t happen that a team comes back from double-digits. They make a run, they can get close, but it generally doesn’t happen. That’s why teams don’t like to go down by double-digits. They can comeback, but it ain’t easy.
I was sorely wrong; ‘Nova entered the tourney at #8 in the country, I believe. And they didn’t lack for talented athletes as I’d like to have thought.
I could throw a baseball from parents’ backyard into the parking lot of the DuPont Pavilion and I was on-campus, age 15, when they won their Championship. (Sh*t me and my pimply cohorts “raided†Harold Pressley & Ed Pinckney’s dorm room on a variety of occasions for bball talk and hero-worship.) So I’ve always seen that contest differently—more inline with the headlines portraying the “Cinderella Story.†And, yes, I’ve come to liken our Panthers’ chances in ‘07 to ‘Nova’s success in ’85. But true enough, that Wildcat team roster suggests far more skill and ability—even if it doesn’t suggest a lot of depth— than I’d previously have given credit for.
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Case in Point: I’ll be careful about making another comparison btw our current Panther team and the 1985 NCAA Champs. They weren’t stacked, but could boast something that we can’t this date/ time. Namely, three players of “star†quality (all of them seniors in their final game):
*Edward (Ed) Lewis Pinckney (born March 27, 1963 in The Bronx, New York) is an American former professional basketball player in the NBA. He was selected 10th overall by the Phoenix Suns in the 1985 NBA Draft. He also played with the Sacramento Kings, Boston Celtics, Milwaukee Bucks, Toronto Raptors, Philadelphia 76ers and Miami Heat, and retired in 1997.He is currently an assistant coach for the Villanova Wildcats.
**Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player after registering 16 points and 6 rebounds in the victory over the Hoya’s.
**Harold Pressley (born July 14, 1963 in the Bronx, New York), is an American former professional basketball player who was selected by the Sacramento Kings in the 1st round (17th overall pick) of the 1986 NBA Draft.
Last, ***Dwayne Edward McClain (born February 7, 1963 in Worcester, Massachusetts) is an American former professional basketball player who was selected by the Indiana Pacers in the 2nd round (27th overall) of the 1985 NBA Draft. *** Yet, whereas McClain also made it to the “next level†as a 6’6″ shooting guard, he played in only one NBA season.
Most notably, his stint was tainted by his use of cocaine for which he’s all but admitted using throughout the ’84-’85 season (on/ off the court is where the debate comes into play).
over-and-out
There’s only so much you can prepare for, especially with college kids that you can’t work 24×7, 365 days a year like you can with pro’s.
That said, I keep hearing these truisms that “the guards aren’t athletic enough.” OK, Fields looks a bit like Malcolm Jamaal Warner during the “Whatever and Eddie” years (as opposed to the svelte “Cosby” years) but I hardly think he’s a slob. And Graves looks pretty damn athletic to me. Ramon is smallish, OK, but didn’t his Dad work these guys all summer into (say it with me Jerome Bettis and Mario Lemieux fans) “the best shape of their lives?” I just think our coaches do need to make some subtle adjustments. But (as mentioned above) there’s only so much you can cram into these kids at once.
