I’ll be the first to admit that I usually over-react to Pitt athletics. No other sports team/program has done this to me, and I think it’s mostly because of writing for this blog. When we win I’m at the highest of highs and I think Pitt is the greatest in the world. When we lose, however, I tend to think the sky is falling.
The loss 13-point-destruction at the hands of Rutgers doesn’t do that to me though. I think Chas gave plenty of reasons to calm down a bit. Hey, it’s the Big East — even the teams near the bottom can surprise you. They’re definitely on a hot streak and we’re banged up pretty well. All we need to do is hold the fort down until Fields gets back and we’ll be in good shape. Plus, more and more news keeps coming out of Fields returning sooner than originally thought.
Unlike football where one loss can completely ruin a season, this is basketball. Everything will be alright — step off the ledge…
It’s hard to swallow a loss when it was due to lack of effort. Not injuries, not freshman stupidity, but lack of effort.
No, this isn’t the end of the season, but its embarassing. I’m embarassed for them. This should never happen again.
I will settle for playing “real” Pitt basketball for the rest of the year–take care of the rock, rebound on both ends of the floor, tough man to man D (though we may have to work in more zone due to our lack of depth) and out tough the other team.
Let’s face some facts here, Rutgers was on a roll that happens sometimes a team/player just gets hot and they hit a ton of shots it happens. Also we are not deep right now. We do not have that 9 to 10 player rotation that kept our guys fresh the last couple of years. So these guys are tired like I said I don’t see this being repeated just be glad it happened in January.
Central RB Taglianetti picks Pitt
By Tricia Lafferty
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
It’ll be a family affair at Pitt for the Taglianettis next year.
Central Catholic running back Andrew Taglianetti made a verbal commitment to Pitt on Sunday. His brother, South Fayette quarterback Jon Taglianetti, accepted an opportunity to be a preferred walk-on for the Panthers.
______________________________________________
NOTE: I’m hardly on the cutting edge of Pitt sports these days and have hardly taken in whatever content exists below the recruiting summary posted 1/28. Hence my apology supposing this story isn’t quite what I’d pressume “breaking news.â€
Seems as though PZeise let the world know about Taglianetti’s verbal on the 27th. (What’s up with delay in the Trib, anyway?)
__________________________________________________
Central’s Taglianetti gives Pitt verbal commitment
Sunday, January 27, 2008
By Paul Zeise, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Maybe that’s what we need.
1. Pitt just got embarrassed at home by RUTGERS!!
2. Pitt doesn’t generally lose 2 games in a row, and definitely doesn’t lose 2 games in a row when playing at the Pete.
3. Dixon doesn’t like poor effort and poor execution, so I suspect they will pay for it in practice… and they won’t want to push that even further.
4. Ronald Ramon needs redemption for his game ending turnover against Villanova last time. He has been amazingly efficient at point guard the last 6 games, and I suspect he will want to prove that the loss to Villanova, while supremely his fault, was a fluke.
He took the loss hard!