Cannot figure this Pitt team out..what an enigma..should have blown this team off the floor.

Oh well .hopefully saving it for Louisville and their overrated center.

Will need a big game from Blair tmw. Hopefully he’s over his jitters and will come in with an “I’m gonna rip the f@#$ing rim down” attitude. Will also need some offensive production from Fields. He’s getting to the rim, but double clutching for no reason. Did that twice tonight and missed because of it.

oh my pre-game bar experience at Stout’s on 33rd St. between 6th and 7th Ave was priceless. I had some Syracuse guys crying in their beer next to me trying to hit on me to forget their horrid loss. i gave them a ‘let’s go pitt’ pin and told them to they better find out if carmelo can come back someday. HA.

so tomorrow night… same time- but let’s be out for BLOOD!! (maybe some more rebounds!!)

LET’S GO PITT!!!!!

Here’s the way I see his progress:

*Rebounding — really solid all year, great performance for a 6’7″ center in the Big East

*Offense — hasn’t shown any real development in post moves or passing all year. He desperately needs the coaching staff to work with him on expanding his inside game, because he can only go right at this point and doesn’t have any kind of face-up game. With those quick feet and those hands, he has all the tools, but he needs guidance. I won’t even mention the foul shooting.

Defense — his feet and long arms get him all kinds of steals, which is unique for a big man, but obviously he has no idea what he’s doing out there with regard to team defense and he’s foul prone.

Pitt’s really lucky to have him, because not too many guys could come in and hold their own inside against Big East competition. I hope Dixon and staff are able to help him realize his potential the way they seem to have helped Sam Young grow his game.

Defense: Better, but two main problems. Ramon has done nothing to make himself less suceptible to moving screens….and….

Blair presents a huge problem if the other team has a great guard. As dumb as this sounds when you first hear it, he was the reason that Vaughn got hot at the end. Thats why Dixon pulled him and he didn’t play at the end. Biggs did a better job playing team defense than Blair did.

Its hard to describe what he’s doing, but its like he’s “going through the motions” instead of playing actual defense according to what the other players are doing. Its like he’s thinking “ok, hedge and stick my arm out for a second here, now run back and recover” instead of paying attention to what the guard is doing. If you just stick your arm out and the guard ignores it cause he knows you’re just going through the motions, you’re not going to turn him. Blair needs to turn him and give Ramon (or whomever) enough time to actually get right up to the guard. Blair just sticks his hand out, then runs – the guard doesn’t turn, and in fact he started using Blair running as a screen on Ramon to bury more threes.

So then we quit hedging and switched instead, and the immdiately got the switch of Blair on Vaughn, and he promptly lit him up for a three. Thats when Dixon called a TO and Blair sat for the rest of the time. Biggs is more mobile, and a little better on D – but they still just kept forcing switches until Biggs was on Vaughn, and then just kept taking him to the hole.

I’m glad Dixon made the adjustment and stopped the hedging, and we got the win – i just don’t know why we didn’t decide to trap instead. They had one offensive threat. Trap him on the screen, make someone else take the ball. He was still able to drive or pull up when we were switching screens, and was still able to score. Trap him and take him out of the game, make one of the other guards take the ball, then face guard Vaughn. Deny him the ball. Trap. Rinse and repeat.

Other than that, everyone played pretty good D, including Sam Young. Probably his best defensive games of the year. Maybe because its tourney time he’ll keep up the intesity.

Now its time to get revenge on LU.

And you know Burr or Higgins will be reffing tomorrow. No way we avoid them 2 days in a row.

It’s about that time in the year where they just need pack it-in tom

Crean, Thomas Aaron “Tom” … just call me “Tom”

Tom Cream

Everyone remember the backscreens and layup lines?

Our guards didn’t struggle on D so much – it was Blair a lot of the time. That and bad shots leading to transition buckets. Fields was still struggling, and a lot of his shots were short, that led to run outs. We went to a zone for a little bit, until the drained half a dozen 3s in a row. We (Blair and Young) also struggled on the help D when it was necessary.

We need to pick up the D tomorrow if we want to have a chance. Blair really needs to step it up, or we’re going to have to play Biggs more and hope he shows up on defense. I wonder if Dixon is going to double padgett like we started to do towards the end of the game.

And hopefully the reffing doesn’t go down the shitter like it did in the previous louisville game.

On offense, we missed a ton of wide open shots too. Have to shoot it well again.

Obviously we can win this, we just can’t allow 90% shooting or whatever it was last time.

Please note that there is no deep rooted conspiracy against Pitt by the referees.

Yes sometimes a call goes against the Panthers but overall what you look for in a ref is consistency.

So take a strong sedative about 20 minutes before tip-off and try to enjoy the game tonight.

Your cruelty was most excellent. Keep up the good work!

Have you watched teh games today? Hibbert fouled out in 15 min, WVU/UConn game almost set teh record for fouls in a game – and even the commentators were bitching about the inconsistency.