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November 14, 2007

Basketball Things

Filed under: Basketball,Players,Prognostications,Tactics — Chas @ 11:12 am

Many of you know I’m a big fan of the more advanced numbers and statistics that are starting to permeate basketball. Especially those involving tempo and efficiency. Ken Pomeroy has been a guy I regularly cite and his stuff is often used by me during the season. He and John Gasaway formerly of Big Ten Wonk blog have gone to work for the people who do Baseball Prospectus to produce work stat-driven work in college basketball this season. The geek in me is very excited about this for this year and going forward.
Of course, just two of them trying to cover 340 teams means the previews ran right into the season. They only got to the Big East this week. Interesting to see that Pitt is 10th in the Big East in % of returning minutes — something that speaks to the experience of a team. Marquette, Louisville and G-town are 1, 3 and 5 in that.

As for the look at Pitt. There’s plenty, but here’s a snippet.

As mentioned above, 6’1″ senior Ronald Ramon has functioned as a highly efficient supporting player up to this point. While he turns the ball over a hair more often than you’d like from your spot-up shooter, uncanny accuracy from the floor has more than made up for that. With Gray gone, more possessions will now come Ramon’s way. The test will be how well he can sustain his efficiency while playing a more prominent role in the offense. Also available is Keith Benjamin, a 6’2″ senior.

There’s been talk this year about how a new-look no-Gray Panther team is going to run the floor and increase the tempo. It could happen, sure, but don’t bet the farm just yet. Dixon may let his foot off the brake enough for the pace to creep up a little from last year’s mark of 62 possessions per 40 minutes in-conference. (The were the slowest non-Georgetown team in the Big East.) Even so, this team isn’t going to look like North Carolina or Kansas any time soon.

Pitt this year could have the makings of an interesting test for its coach. The Howland/Dixon preference, doubtless, would be to continue life as an old-school pound-it-down-low kind of team. The makeup of this year’s personnel, however, would seem to suggest that a more perimeter-oriented approach may be in order. Coaches often talk about modifying their styles year-to-year, depending on the players on hand. Dixon will have to decide if this is one of those years.

I think Ramon’s numbers are going to suffer a bit as teams are less likely to play off of him this season.

Pitt, of course, is feeling a bit confident about its ability to play different styles in response to what defenses give them after the weekend.

The Panthers showed off their new transition game against Houston Baptist, which employs full-court pressure defense and a fastbreak offense. The Panthers won, 103-62, the most points scored by a Pitt team since a December 1995 game against Long Island.

The following day against North Carolina A&T, Pitt had to win the game with outside shooting. Aggies coach Jerry Eaves, noticing Pitt shot only 29 percent from 3-point range against Houston Baptist, packed it down against the Panthers’ post players and forced their 3-point shooters to win the game.

The Panthers responded by making 12 of 27 shots from behind the arc and won easily, 88-61.

Then came Saint Louis, which played at a completely different pace. The Billikens gave the Panthers all they could handle for 30 minutes before Pitt finally pulled away. Not only did Dixon get to see his team excel in a low-possession game with a defensive posture, he got to see how they performed in a close game under pressure.

“That’s why the coaches scheduled like this,” point guard Levance Fields said. “[Saint Louis] was a great opponent for this game. We weren’t able to get up and down like we would like, but it was something we knew we’d have to deal with throughout the season. We think we did very well doing it. We didn’t lose our heads or get mad. We knew we wouldn’t be able to get as many points as we did the first two games, so we had to settle down, execute plays better and step it up on defense. And that’s what we did.”

There’s still a lot of work to go on this, but it’s a good start. That could also apply to DeJuan Blair who keeps getting positive pub.

There are those who feel Blair’s combination of skill and toughness are reminiscent of forward Brian Shorter, one of the most ferocious scorers and rebounders in Pitt history. Others believe Blair compares favorably to Charles Smith, the Panthers’ all-time leading scorer and shot blocker.

“He’s gotten better each game and he’s continued to improve in every area,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “On defense, he’s has a way to go but he can score in the paint, he’s bright and he understands things.”

Memphis coach, John Calipari, was on Mike&Mike on ESPN radio this morning. He was being asked about the impact and effect on the game with freshmen players. Specifically his own in Derrick Rose. He made an interesting — and it is was as much about plugging the rest of his players as anything else I know — point about how it is as much about the media fascination. That all the stories after Memphis’ opening week were about Rose despite the outstanding play of players like Douglas-Roberts and Taggart.

There’s a bit of that going on right now with Blair. Young is getting a decent share as well, but there’s a lot going on with the team right now that should be noted. Wanamaker has come in and created 11 assists in only 3 games (and he only played a couple minutes on Sunday) to spelll and compliment Fields. Not to mention 4 steals. Mike Cook is quietly doing a lot of things early with some scoring, a 3-1 A/TO ratio and rebounding.

It will be curious to see how Benjamin actually fits into the rotation as the season progresses. In the faster tempo, attacking style I could actually see him getting minutes at the expense of Ramon.

Definite bemusement by a Duquesne fan looking for optimism.

I love it. A Duquesne fan looking a few games ahead to Pitt. In seasons past this would have been bad form because the Dukes would go out and lose at home to Lafayette or some team like that before Pitt. But now that Ron Everhart actually has some talented players, it’s kind of fun to take a peek ahead to this game.

Haven’t really thought much about it since it doesn’t happen until early December. The Dukes will be better, but not even better than St. Louis at this point.





How about UCLA getting a prime time TV game against a Division II opponent. Seriously? That’s the most competitive game they could come up with?
Also, I liked the halftime spot with Wooden. He claimed the college game was getting too physical. Hmmm….Shot across Howland’s bow?

Comment by Dave in Orlando 11.14.07 @ 12:25 pm

By “they” I meant ESPN.

Comment by Dave in Orlando 11.14.07 @ 1:36 pm

Any news on the Kevin Jones press conference? I am not sure what time it is set for. This guy would be a good addition if we can sign him.

Comment by Panthoor 11.14.07 @ 1:47 pm

I heard Kevin Jones to WVU…not 100% on this one, but pretty sure…

Comment by Stuart 11.14.07 @ 2:10 pm

The Journal News said he was making the announcement to day at 2 p.m.

link to lohud.com

Rivals has an exclusive as to what his decision is, but I don’t subscribe to that site.

Comment by Dave in Orlando 11.14.07 @ 2:13 pm

The only reason I could imagine he would go there is Huggins telling him “look at these bums I have to deal with now…you’re starting next year, no doubt.” Other than that – why in the hell would you ever step foot in that shithole? The “facilities”? The “education” from the school (oh the irony – i read his older brother said academics were important)? Oh well, another kid makes a poor decision. Not the first, not the last.

Comment by Stuart 11.14.07 @ 2:15 pm

It is official per Rivals. WVU bound.

Comment by Noel 11.14.07 @ 2:25 pm

Bah. He will be good there but it will be hard for him to hit the next level with the talent there. Blair is going to pound all over him next season.

Comment by Panthoor 11.14.07 @ 2:33 pm

link to lohud.com

Also confirmed here. I don’t like the fact that we’re already losing out on recruits to Huggins and he hasn’t even coached a regular season game at WVU yet.
That said – I’m not sure we have an immediate need at the three or four spot. I do think we’ll ultimately need an athletic five, however. Fingers are crossed.

Comment by Dave in Orlando 11.14.07 @ 2:43 pm

As for Jones is it not true that Pitt was a late participant in recruiting him? That being the case I see it as nothing to get ruffled about.

Comment by Kenny 11.14.07 @ 4:58 pm

Also we have Robinson coming in next year’s class, and we can save the scholarship for a big.

Comment by Kenny 11.14.07 @ 4:59 pm

that is 2nd recruit huggins stole off of us, last year was that kid at k state

Comment by Kurt 11.14.07 @ 5:54 pm

that kid- Michael Beasley- has averaged 31pts per 19rbs per about 4 blks and is shooting 40% from 3pt land

Comment by dan 11.14.07 @ 6:30 pm

Kurt–Huggins didn’t steal Jones from us–rather we tried to steal him from Huggins and weren’t successful in doing so. We just got a late start at re-recruiting him as our 2nd option when we didn’t get Vargas and then not really hard until Dodson got the bad news fronm the Clearinghouse and a ship opened up. WVU was also in position to offer immediate starting PT as a frosh–we were not. I believe from reports that the Jones camp also seemed to have been impressed by BS from Huggins about how he (Huggins) works some special magic that better develops players for the NBA than anyone else. IMO, the fact that he has coached 17 past NBA players had very little to do with their making the NBA. They all had the necessary talent and ability to begin with and would likely have made the NBA no matter who coached them in college as long as they played for any successful major program. All that these guys making the NBA proves is that Hugins is a snake oil salesman of the first magnitude who can recruit talent. Unfortunately, for many people perception is reality and they believe he must be doing something special or different with his recruits than everyone else–utter nonsense!

Comment by pitt 1972 11.14.07 @ 7:29 pm

Amen.

In the meantime, he has to spend the next 4 years of his life in that trailer park, and “gradumacate” with a degree as useful as 2 years work experience at the local fast food joint. Brilliant! Not that education actually matters to him… Here’s to 0-8 (or 0-12 if we meet in the tourney).

Comment by Stuart 11.14.07 @ 8:43 pm

Still with losing beasley, vargas and now jones, you have to wonder if Jamie Dixon will ever get that Jerome Lane/Charles Smith type player to get over the top.

Comment by Kurt 11.14.07 @ 8:50 pm

Kurt–If you remember we didn’t “get over the top” even when we had Smith and Lane. At the end of the day those teams didn’t do any better than Pitt’s Howland-Dixon teams.

Comment by pitt 1972 11.14.07 @ 9:06 pm

Kurt–Oh–IMO, Jones isn’t in the same class as Lane, Smith, Vargas and Beasley so he is not a good example of a failure to recruit a big time player. He is a nice player but not a superstar, IMO.

Comment by pitt 1972 11.14.07 @ 9:09 pm

The worst part of this is we’re still being tagged with the plodding “Defense-only” reputation that obviously must turn off these top-rated kids who all want to be the next Kevin Durant or Greg Oden. Yet in fact our defensive diligence has eroded regularly in the past 3 years. I guess nobody is sold on our “new look” run and gun style!

Comment by geeman2001 11.14.07 @ 9:10 pm

Don’t put Vargas in that category either. Beasley was rated the #1 player in the country. Huggins hired his old AAU coach and that his how he lured him to KState. Dixon wouldn’t officially offer the kid unless he decommitted from KState. The problem with Coach Dixon is not as sleazy as most of these guys. He will have to be a little more ruthless if he wants to land the 5* players. Kevin Jones was not a 5* star, can’t miss prospect. It will probably work out for the best. I trust these coaches to use the scholarship on a quality kid with potential.

Comment by Omar 11.14.07 @ 10:10 pm

The “perceived knock” on Pitt is that it has a plodding O, and D orientated program. There is a lot of current historical validity to that perception of the Pitt BB program.

The program’s current run of success has never gotten past the Sweet 16. The main reason was the lack of overall team athleticism. Teams with athletic guards, and bigs stymied them every time.

It is my belief that the current roster’s athleticism and attendant want of the coaching staff to run/press when possible will make the program more appealing to better recruits. Also if they were to break that 16 barrier this year, or next, that all the more would make Pitt a serious contender with top 50 recruits.

Comment by Kenny 11.15.07 @ 9:30 am

We still play tough defense. The intensity has not eroded at all the last three years. That is a ridiculous comment. The problem the last three years defensively, frankly, was Aaron Gray. He was a monster on the boards and offensively, but he regularly got abused by smaller players (Marquette, Auburn, UCLA and Louisville) come to mind. This year the guards and bigs are much better suited to play the Pitt defense of old.

Comment by Omar 11.15.07 @ 2:07 pm

Omar,

What? Gray only played the last two seasons. I assume that was just a mistake.

Marquette did nothing inside the last couple years. They were completely guard oriented, and relied on getting past the guards outside while the nobodies inside did whatever was needed to keep Gray away from lane if they weren’t shooting 3s.

Louisville? You mean with 6’10” Caracter and 7′ Padgett? Those smaller players?

Auburn was not a threat in the first game at the Pete. The second game at Auburn, Gray had a double-double as the leading scorer and rebounder.

link to pittsburghpanthers.cstv.com

I’ll give you his troubles with UCLA, but I also recall the whole team struggling. Not just Gray. Again, though, it wasn’t smaller players inside that abused him.

Any traditional center is going to be in trouble if he has to slide over to defend a speedy guard or wing forward who gets past his defender.

And frankly, the Pitt defense the last couple years has been pretty good. I’m questioning how exactly “the problem” defensively was Gray.

Comment by Chas 11.15.07 @ 2:53 pm

Well, I can think back to many times when Gray was so MFing slow on the hedge that he would be totally out of position after the pick. It impeded their pressure on the perimeter. I know they haven’t played anybody yet this year, but that perimeter pressure has been pretty impressive thus far…

Comment by Carmen 11.15.07 @ 3:11 pm

UCLA plays the same system as us and gets top 50 recruits…

We don’t have A) tradition, B) a coach that’s gotten multiple players playing time in the NBA or, C) a single win in the sweet 16. If we could get even one of those, i think we could get some top 50 players… Until then, we’re just going to have to keep overacheiving with our “scrubs.”

Comment by Stuart 11.15.07 @ 4:48 pm

with smith & lane we were a barry goheen shot away from the final 4. in those days, if we wanted a player, he came. bobby martin, brian shorter, ect, ect. and those were the days when big east bb was king!!!

Comment by Kurt 11.16.07 @ 12:01 pm

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