Sorry for the late start. Was outside doing more digging out of all the snow. My back is killing me, barely got back inside. Haven’t even had a chance to grab a beer yet.
Ugly start so far. Lots of misses. At least the defensive effort appears there early.
12:18: DePaul is supposed to have a lot of talent. A big recruiting class. Lots of people think highly of Jerry Wainwright. He was on the coaching staff for USA Basketball (U-21, I think). Aside from being very personable and glib, I have yet to see a DePaul game where I thought the coaching was the difference — in a good way. Especially on defense.
Pitt has really started hitting the shots thanks to the poor DePaul defense. The thing that worries me is that the Pitt players will use it as an excuse not to play defense. Lord knows they need to.
11:09 left in the half, Pitt leading 20-11.
12:28: And there’s the lack of defense inside. DePaul has closed to within 5 with 8:30 left.
12:30: Geez. Wanamaker with a nice steal on help defense, then tries to go 1-3 and turns it right back over. The hoop goes the other way +1. Again, no defense inside to allow right to the basket.
DePaul can take the lead with the free throw after the commercial break.
12:35: That TV timeout gave Pitt a chance to regroup. Moving the ball on offense again and now a 8-0 run to take a 35-27 lead with 5:03 left in the half.
A little more patient on defense in this spurt.
12:40: DePaul already has 3 players with 2 fouls — Clarke, Koshwal, Poscic — mainly inside guys.
12:47: Yes, Pitt leads 45-39.
I’m not that happy, though. Not doing a good job on defense. Way too many easy drives straight to the basket. No one there to contest them. DePaul is not a good team, and they are being allowed to get to the rim.
Sloppy with the ball. Crap load of turnovers — 7 or 8 so far.
Sure the offense has looked pretty good, but this is against DePaul and their weak defense. Fine that Pitt is shooting and scoring. The defense is what they need to be playing.
1:10: Pitt up 56-45 with 16:26 left. Ramon has drained a couple 3s. Still giving up baskets in the paint. There seems little urge from Young or Blair to challenge shots. More afraid of drawing fouls and not getting to score later. Rebounding is solid, at least.
1:20: DePaul is so bad defensively. Leaving Pitt’s perimeter wide open. Benjamin with another 3 and a +1.
Now Pitt getting a quick little spurt.
Pitt up 68-56, with under 13 minutes.
1:33: The good news for Pitt’s offense. 5 players already in double figures — Benjamin, Fields, Blair, Young and Brown. Ramon has 9 points. At least on offense, the wealth is being spread.
Still struggling with the whole defense. Pitt leads 77-68 with 8:04 left.
1:39: Ramon with a basket puts him in double digits as well.
6:34 left Pitt up 84-70.
1:50: Not much to say since Pitt is taking care of DePaul with a 91-76 lead with under 4 to go.
The offense had their way with DePaul, as expected. As I’ve said over and over today, the defense is the issue and that still doesn’t look good.
1:53: In comes senior walk-on Maurice Polen. Go, ‘Mo!
1:59: Pitt cruises 98-79 final.
Also really good news, the women’s team just upset Notre Dame in the Women’s BE Tournament quarterfinals!
If Pitt wins we are the #7 seed and play at 7PM Wed. If we lose and Cinn beats Uconn we lose the tiebreaker to Cinn and we are the 8 seed and play at noon. if we lose and cinn loses, we win the tie breaker (vill/Syr) and 7th seed.
So if Cincy loses to UConn, we’ll get Cincy. If Cincy wins, it’ll be a 3-way tie between Cincy, Cuse, and Nova, and we’d get the lowest seeded team – I haven’t seen the tiebreaker on that.
PS – Still have to play better defense 😉
Can’t get these regional broadcasts in Philly, but the most interesting observation about today’s game was the seeming lack of interest in today’s game; if you check-in for updates like I regularly do, you noticed this place was a virtual ghost town this afternoon — LOL, there was a time last season when it seemed 50 or more unique (or not) readers would leave comment regardless of the opponent or outcome of the game. (I think there six (6) total at the buzzer.)
So the question is, Has this season been that much of a disaster? I agree with anyone who is disappointed — the win at Wash. and over Duke at MSG really seemed to indicate that this Pitt team had promise and could potentially go the distance — the injuries, too, were frustrating and it’s a bit deflating when your starting point guard returns to the lineup and nothing much seems to change (theories abound) — but that’s where it ends for me: being “disappointed.” I have a hard time empathizing with those newly vexed or alienated by this team. And I completely misunderstand the perpetually-agitated or anxious and forever-let-down-by-the-team fan (go masturbate or something, please). The “Pitt-guy” who I can’t relate to at all, however, is those who fit into the now-disillusioned dissolution category. These characters cite the program (top-to-bottom) for their angst and hitherto never-look-forward-to-a-championship-again attitude. Incidentally, it’s here in this latter group where one really gets a handle on distinguishing this breed of fan (viz., basketball-only) from other types, namely those truly bipartisan or more-of-a-football-fan types.
Basketball-only types are, needless to say, ill-tempered, spoiled and pestilent by parental conditioning or lack thereof. All share similar early life experiences wherein he-she was sorely discouraged or severely underexposed or without opportunity to enter or participate in truly competitive contests or situations in which “losing” and other unpleasant events/outcomes are internalized as reasonable occurrences in expectable environments, and therefore anticipated and, ultimately, tolerated over the course NORMAL human development.
Oh yeah,
Hey Dennis, nice change of pace with the perspective piece on ‘how far is too far” — certainly worth contemplating.
Still believe in this Pitt team. Think we can make a run in both.
