They put Pitt at #23. For good and bad, Pitt is now a presumed team in preseason rankings. Even when not everyone is exactly sure why.
For all the uncertainty that exists in the middle of the Big East pack, the one thing coaches in the league agree on is the inevitability of the Pittsburgh Panthers.
They may not know precisely how or entirely why, but they’re all sure Pitt is going to wind up somewhere in the upper portion of this league. The team’s traditional toughness, its wealth of experience, the extreme homecourt advantage provided by the Petersen Center and Coach Jamie Dixon’s resiliency have allowed the Panthers to finish with double-digit Big East victories in six consecutive seasons. They haven’t finished lower than fifth since 1999-2000.
That never gets old for me. I go through this every year on the blog with the basketball team. The dark decade of the ’90s still seems like yesterday to me when I think about Pitt basketball. That Pitt is now thought of as one of the top programs in the country and a consistent threat is just… wow.
Mike DeCourcy also has a highly encouraging article regarding Sam Young.
This was one of those offseason skill sessions the NCAA now allows each team, and joining Young on the floor were veteran guard Ronald Ramon, redshirt freshman Gilbert Brown and freshman guard Bradley Wanamaker. It started with shooting drills, which even the greenest college player can figure out, but things got a little rough for the rookie when the players were paired up for defensive drills.
It was Young who had to remind Wanamaker where he was supposed to be, when he was supposed to be there and what techniques he would need to employ to prevent the opposition from scoring.
I repeat: It was Young.
Those familiar with Pitt are aware that awareness, for lack of a better term, frequently was a problem for Young in his first two seasons. He brought to the program a set of physical gifts unmatched by any player during the Panthers’ renaissance, but his minutes were limited by his tendency to wind up misplaced and the presence of veteran Levon Kendall, who specialized in defensive efficiency and played the same power forward position.
With Kendall gone, Young becomes the veteran, and it seems he is embracing that responsibility. “Now I get to say I’m more experienced, I’m more of the leader of this team. It’s going to be a privilege to lead the team and see what I’m capable of,” Young said. “They’re looking at me to take them to the promised land. I’ve got to be that guy.”
If Young is comfortable, healthy and really embracing the team game, well this will be his break out year.
The one area i do like is rebounding. I think Pitt will be tougher to get rebounds against with Blair. If you have watched him play is absolutely brutal underneath. Pitt forgot how to check guys off the boards last year when they just assumed gray would have it. They will be forced to get back to being brutal and I think it should be good to watch.
I hope im wrong, but I just dont see this team as a breakout scoring team.
I think we’re going to see a lot more from Ramon this year – last year over 50% (probably 75%) of our plays were run through Gray, and we really didn’t attempt to create shots for anyone else until it was crunch time and we needed 3’s. Watching Ramon this summer, I agree he can’t create his own shot from a standstill with a defender in from him off his dribble, but tons and tons of shots can be created for him off of motion on offense. He not only hits threes, but he hits twos also. Pretty well at that. When they weren’t dumping the ball down all summer, he was able to make a ton of shots, especially when he caught the ball on the move – any seperation and he could make the shot. He too could have a huge breakout year – he doesn’t have to be standing still behind the three to make shots it turns out.
I’m not drinking the koolaid on the “fast-break” team…i think you hear that every year by default when a team loses its slow big man. Seriously – what are you going to do, a fast break on every possession? I hope that’s not what we’re going to rely on… Pitt has always collected more wins with inferior talent every year because they out execute everyone in the half court. Few turnovers, high percentage shots…they say “up-tempo” and I hear “risky passes” and “more turnovers.” I doubt we’re going to throw out the fundementals this year…
And rebounding is all about effort, 100%. There is no excuse for some of our past classes out-rebounding last year, especially when it comes to talent. Even watching Troutman now, the guy looks like he’ll kill for the ball, and will die if he doesn’t get it. These guys should have to wear pink dresses to school the next day everytime they get out rebounded – whether they win or lose. It is unacceptable – when did we get so soft on the boards?
Blair will be good – but cmon, he’s a freshman. No way in 3 weeks of practice he learns everything about defense, etc. By the end of the year we can expect more from him, but for now…anything we get is a bonus. I don’t expect to be running the offense through him yet.
This team has never had a “go-to” guy in the last few years – unless you count Krauser’s wild drive-and-offensive-foul-or-turnover as “go-to.” We didn’t have one last year either (Gray was the last one we expected to make a shot in the clutch). It hasn’t prevented success…but i guess it may have prevented us from getting past the 16…
I think making the tourney is an acceptable year, i’ll be fine with that. I’ll be disappointed if less, and very happy if we win a few games in the tourney.
That is respect.
There is no way that Taft, Gray, Kendall, Lett, Krauser, Troutman or whoever would ever be considered great players. But in the face of the aforementioned the team was successful in making the NCAAs.
This team has as much chance as any other did to make the tourney, and it has more top 100 recruits (Brown, Blair, Fields, Young, Biggs, Wannamaker) on the it’s roster than any other in the current renaissance period of Pitt basketball. And they also have coach who knows how to get the best out of the players he is saddled with.
This season will be very interesting to say the least!
As far as Harris is concerned, we stopped recruiting him for a while because of a number of run ins with the law. Cuse stepped in and got him
Im not sure about Eloy Vargas. Pitt had him all but sealed and worked so hard for him. They needed to seal the deal, and im not convinced Florida should have got him.
I’m super excited to see this fast break, guard oriented team. Villanova was very successful when they used it a few years ago. We are bigger than they were too so if we execute properly then this is going to be a fun season.