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March 7, 2008

4-star center/power forward recruit Greg Echenique has been taking in a lot of schools in the past week or so. The native Venezuelan is a junior who plays at St. Benedict’s Prep (Newark, NJ).

On Wednesday he hopes to get to Miami for the Miami-Boston College game that will be shown on ESPNU. Then he plans to return for classes at St. Ben’s on Thursday and Friday before departing for the North Carolina at Duke game on Saturday. Then he would drive or fly to Pittsburgh for the Panthers’ Sunday’s noon game with DePaul.

This past Sunday he had been in College Park to see Maryland implode against Clemson. He holds an offer and has interest in Pitt.

There’s no sense as to when he will be making a decision, but Rutgers is considered a favorite because they have been to every one of his games and recruited him hard this whole season. Notre Dame, Duke, Maryland and Memphis all have offers for his service as well.





Hmmm… NC/Duke or DePaul/Pitt. Which is going to make a greater impression?
I know they’re not a dime-a-dozen, but I’d like to see some legitimate big men being entertained at The Pete. Echenique may be a great player, but he’s “only” 6’8″ — I think we’re set for a couple of years there. Blair and Troutman were unique in their ability to defend (well, Troutman at least) and score against bigger men. The lack of a true post presence on defense is causing us to collapse with help and leave opponents with far too many open shots. A legitimate shot blocker like UConn’s Thabeeet and even Duquene’s James would go a long way towards solving our current problems.

Comment by Dave in Orlando 03.07.08 @ 10:57 am

That’s just great. Dixon is entertaining a top 40 recruit to play C/PF, and that STILL isn’t enough for the anti-Dixon people here. Outside of Hibbert and Thabeet, there aren’t many players in the Big East taller than 6’9″ that play C and are effective.

Just get good players, don’t worry about height.

Comment by MVK 03.07.08 @ 11:41 am

Updating the “Defense?” thread and hopefully importing it over here, since this thread is closer to the top of the page and all….

The Stanford-UCLA game was great viewing for basketball fans last night, but particularly compelling for people on this website for two reasons:
1) It was the most poorly officiated second-half and OT of the year, HANDS DOWN. I know lots of people on here like to bitch about officials — and I am certainly one of them sometimes — but Stanford got jobbed ROYALLY last night. There’s handing people games, and then there’s smacking games out of the hands of people, which is what the officials did in the last 3 seconds of regulation.

2) UCLA’s d. It might look familiar to many of you. And it was lauded all night as incredible. Love and Mata-Real were hedging out 25 feet from the basket to disrupt Stanford’s ball-handlers…Mata-Real once pinned a Stanford guard AT THE HALF COURT LINE on a really aggressive hedge. Two things that struck me about the effectiveness of this maneuver: 1) Love and Mata-Real are quick and aggressive with it…they SPRINT from the post out to the spot they want to be…I’d like to see more of that from our guys. 2) Stanford, a top 10 team, has slow guards. I mean REALLY slow. That’s part of the effectiveness. And living in Pac 10 country, I can tell you, most teams out here have slow guards. Not just guys who don’t run fast, but guys who take an extra second to make decisions. I can count on one finger how many times I’ve seen Georgetown, Louisville, Notre Dame, Syracuse, or Marquette guards hesitate this year. Think about Flynn and Green and co just slashing around the hedge and driving the lane or dishing to an open man who had come over to fill the empty spot in the post vacated by our big man. These are things that happen when the offense’s speed exceeds the defense’s. These are the things that DON’T happen to UCLA in the Pac 10, for the two aforementioned reasons.

So in conclusion….get faster and play slower guards. Some of that might work.

Comment by maz 03.07.08 @ 11:49 am

The hedge isn’t working because the defense isn’t rotating. Blair and Young aren’t great at disrupting the dribbler either and our guards aren’t particularly great defenders either. All of this leads to the pathetic defense we have seen the last 30 days. Can it improve? Yes. Better awareness and more effort will solve the problem. Will it improve? Who the hell knows!!

Comment by Omar 03.07.08 @ 12:03 pm

BTW, Love is a better player than Blair. However he is not quicker or more athletic. Love is the smarter defensive player right now. Blair can be just as good as Love, maybe even better, if he works hard this summer.

Comment by Omar 03.07.08 @ 12:06 pm

That’s what I don’t get about the problems with our hedge. Yes, Omar is right that the rotation to cover the man rolling to the hoop is slow, but Blair and Young just make token efforts to disrupt the ball-handler, if that.

And it’s been the same thing game after game. Which begs the question: why hasn’t it been fixed??!! Perhaps I’m being naive, but, really, either they can or can’t do it, and if they can’t, stop motherf@#$ing trying it and just start switching and/or fighting through the screens. Is it just Dixon being stubborn, players who don’t have the intelligence to grasp the concept, something else? If it continues, they may be beat DePaul, barely, and get sent packing the first round in the BET, which could very well put us on the outside looking in at the Big Dance.

Comment by Carmen 03.07.08 @ 12:45 pm

MVK,
Get a grip. Explain to me how my comments were “anti-Dixon.”
Yes, don’t worry about height. Because Alexander (6’8″ – 32 points), Greene (6’11” – 23 points), Williams (6’6″ – 27 points), Padget (6’11” – 21 points), Barro (6’10” – 14 points) and Harangody (6’8″ – 23 points) were all shitting purple Twinkies when they got the ball on the blocks.
If Young, Biggs, Blair and McGhee could play defense I wouldn’t question the pursuit of another mid-sized big man. But they can’t, so my question stands.

Comment by Dave in Orlando 03.07.08 @ 12:56 pm

So a 6’8″ player can’t stop opther 6’8″ guys (and Greene is 6’8″, not 6’11”)? Alexander, Greene, Williamson, Harangody – all 6’8″ or shorter. Height had nothing to do with not being able to stop them.

Just because Blair, Young, and Biggs struggle doesn’t mean Echenique will. Hell, Young and Biggs will be gone before Echenique arrives, so what they have to do with him is beyond me.

They were pretty damn effective with Lett, Troutman, and Zavackas in the post, and GASP!!!!! the tallest of them was only 6’8″!!!!

Just get good players, don’t worry about the height.

Comment by MVK 03.07.08 @ 1:13 pm

Green is 6’11”

link to suathletics.com

And you’re missing the point. There is no interior defensive presence in the program at the moment (I like McGhee’s effort, but he is weak defensively | Austin Wallace has yet see the court | Diggs may not be able to play again because of a hip injury) and there’s only one “big man” in the pipeline at the moment (Dwight Miller) — and he’s only 6’8″ and in all honesty, not that highly regard.
This Pitt team would benefit tremendously from a shot-blocker. They fail to rotate on help defense when beat on the perimeter. Having a safety-valve in the paint means fewer easy baskets in these instances. Yes, Lett Troutman and Zavackas to a lesser extent fared well defensively — but that’s because the teams they were part of grasped the concept of team defense and rarely failed to rotate on help.
“Getting good players” just isn’t enough. Ask Jim Boheim. Getting the right players is much more important.
Of course, we may very well need Echenique because we’ll be dangerously thin at that position by 2009. We’ve failed to secure a quality interior defender in recent recruiting classes and this may very well come back to haunt us. I hope that Blair continues to improve at a dramatic pace because we’ll be in trouble if he doesn’t.

Comment by Dave in Orlando 03.07.08 @ 1:45 pm

I don’t see why we can’t go after good players AND taller players. Aside from Gray, Pitt hasn’t had any real dominant height in its current successful era. So we know that height isn’t the primary stat to worry about. It doesn’t mean we should ignore it either. If I could have a guy with the defensive prowess and rebounding desire of Troutman who is only going to be 6’8″ or I could have a guy like Gray, with Gray’s skill set at 7′, I would take the Troutman prototype 100% of the time. But is there a reason we can’t seek out someone who has some of both? Or, we can get a Troutman AND a Gray on the same team.

Height isn’t the most important. It is what you do with your height, and, even more so, how well you defend. But the teams with the height in the form of players who can actually play (Hibbert, Okafor) have had the most success during the time those players were there.

Comment by The Prowler 03.07.08 @ 2:08 pm

Prowler, someone w/ Chevy’s desire, strength and agility, combined with Gray’s hands, touch and height is pretty much Tim Duncan. Not too many of those out there. In fact, probably only one – Duncan. That being said, I agree with you that it would be nice to have a reasonably athletic 7-footer. Maybe the kid from McKeesport will fit the bill.

Comment by Crackbaldo 03.07.08 @ 3:40 pm

Totally off topic, but if UConn beats Cincy tomorrow, Pitt secures at least a 7 seed in the BE tourney.

Comment by DJ 03.07.08 @ 4:25 pm

Wait .. “Gray’s hands and touch” .. umm… you were referring to these right?

link to metmuseum.org

Comment by MelbaPlace 03.07.08 @ 4:26 pm

Blair was very effective at the hedge earlier in the season. His quick hands were causing a lot of problems for guards coming around the screen.

But for some reason (could be fatigue, could be the massive number of fouls called on this maneuver after a certain point) he stopped hedging as effectively.

The hedge can work, but Blair is fatigued/tentative and McGhee is too slow. Maybe playing Biggs some more to rest Blair? This is a tough question.

Comment by In my seat 90 minutes before kickoff 03.07.08 @ 4:33 pm

The steals were too much too soon. Blair is always poking at the ball instead of getting good position and trying to make the dribbler go backwards. He needs to stop going for a steal every time. It’s okay once in a while, but if you miss then the dribbler has an easy pass to the big or can drive himself.

Comment by Omar 03.07.08 @ 5:12 pm

There is no “just one thing wrong” with our defense. Its a combination of things. The other day, we came out and trapped the screen with a guard and young, then blair rotated to the open man, and we got a steal on the pass, on the first posession of the game.

Second posession, we trap the screen, blair decides to play between his man (that he had to rotate to) and the bucket instead of between his man and the ball, easy pass to his man, he has to close hard, skip pass to open man, wide open 3.

What the fuck happened between those two posessions?

I think his hedge is weak cause he’s been called too many times on a hard hedge – making him sit the entire first half. Now, he just sticks and arm out and runs to the wrong spot. It disrupts nothing.

Some people say its “focus,” some “consistency,” some “youth.” I have no doubt they’re being told what to do, but the repetitive executions just isn’t there.

And let’s not even get into the play where someone sets a backscreen on someone else (a third man is handling the ball at the time) – everytime someone runs that on us, it seems like its the first time we’ve ever seen it.

That’s another problem – our guards are just content to stand 4 or 5 feet from their man, allowing them free reign to pass anywhere they want all over the floor. If we made the guard on the backscreen pick up his dribble, and stand there ONE INCH from his face, we could deny a great deal of those easy passes to cutters. Instead, our guys are just happy to take a break.

And who knows what the hell is wrong with Sam Young. 3 years in the program and plays defense every fourth or fifth play. How the hell do you let a kid like LEVON KENDALL start ahead of you? Alls you had to do was play some D…could’ve gotten major minutes for 3 years…

Maybe they’re just going to have to keep gettin embarassed until they decide defense needs to be played on EVERY play. I have no doubt that they are ABLE to play D – they just don’t seem to care. We’ve taught less skilled players to play better D before. Its a mindset, not something thats requires great physical gifts.

On other thing watching UCLA last night – they double the post, ALWAYS. The second the 5 gets it, the 4 is sprinting over, the 3 face guards the 4 (to prevent the easy dumpoff which we love to allow), and the 1 and 2 sag off their men, and pick the best angles to deny passes to the 1, 2, and 3. They try to deny a skip pass to a guard on the weak side, cause its too hard to recover – at worst, a guard has to come behind the 5 and take a pass – but thats easy enough for one of the guards to cover, and allows everyone else to rotate.

When we rotate, the 4 thinks about it, rolls over to the 5 eventually to maybe provide help, the 3 is too busy standing around, and the 5 gets the easy dump to the 4 for the layup/dunk. Its awful.

We seem to be content to allow guys to pass the ball around to whomever they want, and allow them to do whatever they want, and just hope that we’ll have someone there to get a hand in their face when they finally take a shot. We need to start disrupting plays before they begin, not “read and react” – is Rhoads coordinating this defense too?

Comment by Stuart 03.07.08 @ 6:50 pm

Stuart – I am sorry I didn’t know you well when I was coaching. Could have used you. Your analysis is right on and very observant. Many problems with Pitt D were really exposed watching UCLA last night (and thinking of past Pitt D’s). We used to always double the post and I think that is where most of our D problems start. Too much room in the middle….and you know I have been screaming all year about us getting backscreened for Pick and rolls and even simple switches for layups.
That is Jr High School stuff and easy to fix, but it requires communication between players. Maybe you and others are right and JD has had too quick a hook. Big troubles ahead if we don’t fix it.

Starting with DePaul. Anyone that thinks this will be a cakewalk only needs to see their quickness from the perimeter. What a shame it would be to lose another Senior Day.

Hearing more and more rumors on Dixon leaving and Pitt quitly courting Sean Miller. Maybe the players hear them too….Mixed feelings here if that happens. JD has given his all…lot of bball yet to be played.

Comment by Dan 72 03.07.08 @ 8:49 pm

I have another possible theory for the poor defense:

Could it be that the loss in quality assistant coaches over the last few years is finally catching up with us?

Look at what Mike Rice has done at RMU. Those guys are really stepping up the D – 29% and 31% shooting in the last two games.

Comment by ME2001 03.07.08 @ 9:59 pm

Oh for the love of Pete with the Dixon leaving rumors. Cut it out already.

Comment by In My Seat 90 Minutes Before Kickoff 03.07.08 @ 10:13 pm

I hadn’t thought about the assistant coaches leaving – always a problem when new guys are learning on the job (Antigua, Knight) – good thought.

Stuart, I’ve also thought the player we’ve wound up missing the most is Kendall because of his defense – Graves also, to a lesser extent.

Comment by Kevin 03.08.08 @ 8:30 am

If all the defensive analysts are correct, then the players have tuned out the coaches, the coaches aren’t communicating well, or the players are uncoachable. Pick a winner. Also, a lot has been discussed about the size of players lately. I checked out the size of the starters of the teams that are presently rated in the top ten. If you don’t think size matters, take the time to check out the starting rosters of those teams. One thing that jumped out at me was if a team went relatively small on the inside, not nearly to the extent we do, they compensated by using big guards. And when I say big, I mean big, 6’5 to 6’7. Surprisingly, Duke was one of the smaller teams in the top 10. Teams rated between 10-15 were very big, accept for Butler. Stanford’s team is huge and they are doing okay. I do agree that undersized, athletic, tough forwards can make a difference, but will they hold up for the long haul? Lastly, most top notch programs down through the year almost always had a super big man.

Comment by ltl 03.08.08 @ 3:05 pm

ltl – enough about size already. No shit taller players would be better. How about this – would you prefer 5 McGhees and Grays on the field? Would that be better?

Seriously, they don’t need anymore height to play competent defense. How tall do you need to be to prevent a 5’9 guard getting a DOZEN rebounds against you? That kid was THE SHORTEST kid on the foor and he was KILLING us in rebounds. We’re not a bunch of 5’6 midgets. Teams can get it done with our height. Quit scapegoating.

I’m sure Dixon goes after tall kids every year – and we know, he sucks cause he doesn’t land UNCs and Dukes (or even that amazing Syracuse’s) lineup every year. Enough already.

Comment by Stuart 03.08.08 @ 5:51 pm

SIZE IS NOT THE REASON WE ARE GIVING UP UNCONTESTED LAYUPS!

Comment by Omar 03.08.08 @ 6:30 pm

As usual, only part of the post was commented on. So who’s to blame, the coaches? Have the players tuned them out? Can’t the coaches teach defense, or are the players uncoachable? Pick a winner!! And wow, those are some great choices for big men? Although you can’t fault Gray, he worked his butt off and got all he could out of his God given talent. He can’t help it that he never learned to make a layup. And no one is arguing the FACT that size is not the reason for uncontested layups, but it is also a fact at this stage of the season that practically ever team in the top 15 has much more size than Pitt. Dave in Orlando had a good point when he said legitimate big man. No disrespect to Mcghee, but he certainly isn’t mobile, he hasn’t learned how to set a pick without moving, and he doesn’t intimidate anyone with his leaping ability. He tries hard, but I’ll be very surprised if he ever develops beyond just okay. In my opinion, you start Blair, Brown, Young, Benjamin, and Fields. You rotate in Biggs, but always keep at least three big men in at all times, if you consider these guys true big men. Yes, play Ramon, but never have three guards on the floor at one time. Sparingly, uses McGhee and Wannamaker in pinch, but stay as big as possible to compensate for our small slow guards. I’d bet money if Dixon would use that type of rotation his rebounding would improve. I didn’t say defense, but at least rebounding. Dixon needs to try something new, because the rotation he uses now is terrible. Okay Stuart and Omar, wail away.

Comment by ltl 03.08.08 @ 8:05 pm

I don’t care what he is listed at, but Tyler Hansbrough is not much taller than 6’7″. Joey Dorsey is not much taller than 6’9″. UCLA has some size, but it isn’t overwhelming. Kansas has legitimate size. Tennessee doesn’t have any real size. Georgetown has a 7′ who isn’t a problem for Pitt. Stanford got embarrassed by a team that has very little size. Duke is not intimidating with their size. I just don’t see what you are talking about man. We have a severe issue at 1 position. The 2-guard. Dixon isn’t going to bench Ramon, so it doesn’t really matter. Hopefully the kid will play better because he is a warrior and great teamate.

If Dixon benched him it probably still wouldn’t solve our problems defensively. I am positive the coaches are telling the kids what to do. For some reason or another they simply aren’t executing. We are a little inexperienced and we know Young just doesn’t get it on the defensive side of the ball. In fact, 3 of the 5 players out there are first year starters. I’m sure that has something to do with it. I’m not going to blame the coaches because they aren’t the ones out there making ridiculous mistakes.

Comment by Omar 03.08.08 @ 9:01 pm

Im so sick of this defense crap, all it is, is HEART. Diving on the floor for the ball, coming down with the rebounds when you are the only Pitt player there. My 5th grade travel team is small and beats bigger kids with heart. I have 7kids that play the whole game and win with heart and lose by quitting. SO this crap about tired, bad d and the pick and rolls not being picked up is CRAP.HEART WINS GAMES, GET IT PITT, Pitt beat G_TOwn with HEART

Comment by Buzz 03.09.08 @ 2:29 pm

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