Sorry about the sporadic posting. Lots of little things in the real world, including hitting the road tomorrow and more travel plans for next week. There are days when being a one-man global content provider can be a bit tricky.
You know, as bad as Pitt had been in the 90s, at least the local papers knew enough to send someone to cover the Media Days. Cinci gets to a bowl, has their team selected by the media for 5th in the Big East this season (Pitt, 6th), has season ticket sales actually getting a noticeable bump, and they still can’t get the local media to care to even spare the cash to send a beat writer to the event. — really pissing off new coach Brian Kelly.
Hell, the Altoona Daily Mirror actually sent a reporter to do a piece on Derek Kinder and Pitt along with a more general Big East overview.
Discussion with Pitt is muted, unless you consider getting tips on how to eat lobster from Dave Wannstedt vital news. This bit is worth chewing over (sorry).
When asked how many freshman players would be contributors for the Panthers this season, Wannstedt replied, “Seven guys will play for us right away.”
Hmm. Maybe McCoy, Jacobson, DeCicco, Hargrove, Caragein, Jones… and who else?
Last games of summer league were last night. First game had Cook’s team against a team with no Pitt players. His defense looked like a summer league game – not that I expect much from him anyways. Getting driven past, shot over, generally no good at all. Put much more effort in on O, but was only 2/6 from 2, 1/2 from 3, 11/16 from the line. Inconsistent – would make good decisions as to when to drive and when to pull up, then a couple trips in a row he’d do something like drive into 3 guys and turn the ball over. So nothing new here. FT shooting poor – although he was 6-8 at the end of the game when the other team was fouling to extend the game. Cooks team still won.
Best part of the game was when Troutman stolled in with 15 min left and got in the game. Within 1 min he had already deflected 2 balls on D and fouled some kid down low shoving him off the block. Talk about intense. Then he realized he still had his diamond earrings in and went and sat the rest of the game, took them out, and waited for the next game to start.
McGhee – I still don’t think he’s very good. I have him for 8 points – 2/5 from field, 4/8 from line. Several times he either didn’t coral the ball the first time it hit his hands or he missed a pass thrown to him altoghether. Missed his only hook shot attempt, couldn’t catch a lob pass right at him, missed all his tip/put-back attempts. On D he doesn’t play 6’10 or whatever he is. No blocks, guys shooting over him, guys getting boards around him. He finally got frustrated at doing nothing on D and brought his arms down to pound some kid so that at least he wouldn’t get scored over again. The best was the first time he tried guarding Troutman on the block – he wanted an offensive foul for Troutman backing him down and scoring over him at will! He was literally whining to the refs. You’re not in high school anymore, welcome to the big east. He had 5 boards, 4 of those were offensive, some off of his own misses, and 0 points off those boards. His one highlight was when Troutman fronted him, and he got a lob over the top and took it strong and dunked it. If there is anyone between him and the basket though, it was a lost cause. He even had one of his shots blocked by someone much shorter. God help us if he is the best we can do at center.
Ramon – what a disaster. I shit you not, he was 3/8 – from the line. He missed 3 in a row at one point. 2/8 from 3. 3/7 from 2. Had a couple of throw aways while playing the point – including 1 late when they were down two and NEEDED to score. Got trapped in corner as usual. Just an overall poor game, although he ended with 15 points – on 15 shots. And this is summer league defense here, you’re almost always open.
Wanamaker – this kid started out on fire, scoring 13 before his first miss. Ended with 30. Made both and-1s. Drove hard, under control, had around 6 layups. At one point he was getting shoved backwards to the floor and still got the shot off, scored and got to the line. Had a sweet drive with a reverse layup, also got a board on D, ran the court and scored while getting fouled. Missed a total of 2 – yes, two, shots the entire game. 8/9 from 2, 1/2 from 3. 11/14 from line. At one point he ran the court 3 times in a row for 3 layups. On defense, not so much. Would either back off his man so far he was getting shot over, or would get driven around. He needs some lessons here. And as evidenced by his 30 points, he does not pass. Not that i blame him with his surrounding cast today. Also, he tackled Dodson from behind (hard, both tumbling from mid air to floor) after he had stolen the ball and was going in for a layup – does he know they’re playing at the same school next year and summer league games aren’t worth injuring/getting injured over?
Biggs – at times it looks like he’s improved his ball control and driving, but then he’ll put up the worst shot you’ve ever seen or do something stupid like travel or run someone over. So maybe he hasn’t improved. He did shoot fine in this game. 10 points on 5/8 from 2, and 0/2 from 3. Only 1 board. If he could stay consistent in his execution, he seems like he’d be much better this year. And stop shooting wide open 3’s to prove you can miss them. I’m so tired of this. Did not get to the line at all either.
Dodson – 11 points, 2/5 from 3, 1/2 from 2, 3/5 from line. One bad out of control offensive foul. Hes on the court, but you really don’t see him do much. All his 3’s were wide open, i guess 2/5 is ok…
Troutman – well, he went to Pitt, so… 12 points, 10 of those from point blank range or layups. Was the most intense there – played like he was trying to get a job. Started the game with back to back to back layups before anyone realized he was for real. Gave Wanamaker his only miss from 2 with a solid block. 2/4 from line, 5/6 from field. I wish he could still play for us. I’d take him over a “McGhee” every day of the week. Although thats probably the most obvious think i’ve said all week. Not just his offense, but no one was scoring over/around him on D.
Fields team won this game 71-68…problem was after 10 minutes they had to come back out and play Cooks team for the championship.
Fields – in the second game he played the point well, but shot like shit. 0 points in first half, 0/5. Ended with 8 points, 2/3 from 3, 0/5 from 2. 7 assists though, some amazing ones in there.
Dodson – 16 points in this game, missed all his jump shots, only scored down low – 4/5 at point blank/layup range. Was 2/6 from 3. 1/2 from line. Very inconsistent. Stepped out of bounds, backed someone down then scored, but then have a terrible drive/shot next time down, or dribble off his own foot. Towards the end of the game he was trying to inbound the ball, and 2x in a row he threw it into the arms of the man guarding him, on the second time it deflected right back to him standing out of bounds, causing another turnover. May have been due to the fact they’d been playing almost 2 hours straight at that time. Overall, seems like an OK roll player, maybe someone like Keith Benjamin. Don’t see too much coming from him this year.
Biggs – 19 points, 8/13 shooting and 3 dunks! Only tried 1 terrible 3 towards end of game – this will be a shock, but he missed it. 3/3 from line. He was a lot better in this game and showed some real promise. Had several stong drives, great spin move, him and fields collarborated on a steal where he got the flush. A couple of times after stong moves would put up a terrible shot, but overall much better. If he played like this consistently, i’d love to see him on the floor. When he takes a good shot, he didn’t miss much today. The part that annoys is when he throws the ball at the backboard like it *has* to go in just because it was thrown up there. It hurst to watch him waste all that effort of a solid drive just to toss the ball up for a rebound.
Troutman – little worn down this game, 2/2 from field, 2/2 from line, 6 points, 1 board. Didn’t play as many minutes IIRC.
Well, that’s all, no more basketball til Oct or Nov? Quick summary for those who don’t want to read all that crap above – Wanamaker is better than i heard, Gilbert Brown can be good to, but inconsistent. Blair is as advertised. I’m scared for the Center position, no idea what we’re going to do there, but whatever it is, it don’t look good to me right now. I think we’ll be all right though, especially if we play defense like we used to.
I definitely don’t feel that way – in some places we’re going to be upgraded, others….not so much.
It seems impossible to predict a record right now for a couple reasons:
1. Defense: I have no idea how these kids are going to take to playing defense the way Pitt is supposed to. In summer league, it was 80 pts with a rolling 22 min/half clock…ie, no defense. They could come in and be great and play great team defense, or they could suck. Who knows?
2. Consistency. My personal biggest question, is Sam Young going to play like the player we expected him to be after his freshman year, or the player he was his sophomore year? Is Gilbert Brown going to show up like he did in some of the games? Are any of the centers going to be consistent? Let’s face it, I only saw a handful of games – and although we may have a couple of good pieces of a puzzle, who knows how they’ll fit together.
Look at Uconn last year – they have a ton of talent on paper, but suck as a team. Add up all the supposed individual talent and they should be one of the best in the Big East. But they didn’t play as a team. Are these freshman going to? Redshirt freshman?
I think if Sam Young and Dejuan Blair have a year like Aaron Gray did as a junior, where we shocked the nation, we could go 24-7 like we did that year. Are the freshman going to “get it” like Sam Young and Fields did that year? I mean, the last game of the year our freshman point guard led the team in points. Will Wannamaker and Blair play like that, will any of the centers?
At worst, I still think we’re going to be good as usual. I think we’ll be ranked all year. I think we’ll find someone who can stand still…i mean set screens like Kendall, I actually think we’ll spread the defense more and allow opportunities for Wanamaker, Young, and Blair to cut to the basket, as opposed to shooting 10,000 jump shots/3-pointers like last year because there were 4 guys in the paint.
And we have a brutal big east road schedule.
So, if i have to guess, we’ll go 22-10 and lose in the semis of the BET and second round of the NCAA tournament. Something like 9-7 or 10-6 in the league. Lose to Georgetown, Louisville at home (and 1 other game we screw up). Uconn, Marquette, WVU, and Nova/ND/or/SU. And that might not make sense cause i don’t have a schedule in front of me, and don’t know how many games we even play.
Penn State still sucks.
What do you guys think?
Someone needs to keep Fields and Blair away from the buffet in Sutherland, FCS. I can only imagine how much faster they could be if they weren’t carrying around a second person.
I was just thinking, if we could get 2 kids per year like Wanamaker and Blair, I think we could be in a pretty good position every year, even better than we have been in the past…then I look and see we need to land Vargas for this to continue next year…
